THE  TRUE 
ULYSSES  S. GRANT 

BY 

GENERAL  CHARLES  KING 


The  True 
Ulysses  S.  Grant 


THE  "TRUE"   BIOGRAPHIES 
AND    HISTORIES 


THE  TRUE  WILLIAM  PENN 

BY  SYDNEY  GEORGE  FISHER 

With  numerous  illustrations.    Crown  8vo. 
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THE  TRUE  GEORGE  WASHINGTON 

BY  PAUL  LEICESTER  FORD 

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THE  TRUE  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN 

BY  SYDNEY  GEORGE  FISHER 

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THE  TRUE  THOMAS  JEFFERSON 

BY  WILLIAM  ELEROY  CURTIS 

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BY  WILLIAM  ELEROY  CURTIS 

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THE  TRUE  HENRY  CLAY 

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THE  TRUE  ANDREW  JACKSON 

BY  CYRUS  T. BRADY 

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THE  TRUE  PATRICK  HENRY 

BY  GEORGE  MORGAN 

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THE  TRUE  DANIEL  WEBSTER 

BY  SYDNEY  GEORGE  FISHER 

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THE  TRUE  HISTORY  OF  THE  AMERICAN 
REVOLUTION 

BY  SYDNEY  GEORGE  FISHER 

24  illustrations.    Crown  8vo.    Cloth,  $2.00,  net ; 

half  levant,  85.00,  net, 
THE  TRUE  HISTORY  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

BY  GUY  CARLETON  LEE,  PH.D. 

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GRANT  AS  MAJOR-GENERAL  COMMANDING  IN  THE  WEST 

Enlarged  from  a  carte  de  visile  photograph   by  J.  E.  McClees, 
Philadelphia,  in  the  collection  of  Charles  H.  Stephens 


The  True 
Ulysses   S.   Grant 


By 

Charles  King 

Brig.-General  U.  S.  V.,  1898-99 


With  Twenty-eight  Illustrations 


Philadelphia  and  London 

J.  B.  Lippincott  Company 
1914 


COPYRIGHT,   1914,   BY  J.   B.   LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 


PUBLISHED  OCTOBER,  1914 


PRINTED  BY   J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 

AT  THE  WASHINGTON  SQUARE  PRESS 

PHILADELPHIA,  U.  S.  A. 


TO 
WEST  POINT 

THE 

SCHOOL  WHICH  IN  SPITE  OF  HIS  AVERSION 

TO  THE  SWORD  GAVE  TO  THE  NATION  THE 

INCOMPARABLE  SERVICES 

OP 

ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

THESE  PAGES  ARE  DEDICATED 


340207 


PREFACE 

WHEN  invited  to  prepare  the  manuscript  for  this 
work  the  writer's  first  impulse  was  to  decline.  The 
subject,  however,  had  for  long  years  commanded  his 
deep  interest  and  much  investigation.  His  admiration 
of  the  character  and  his  study  of  the  career  of  Ulysses 
Grant  equalled  probably  those  of  his  eminent  biog 
raphers,  and  finally,  in  the  belief  that  there  were  virtues 
in  the  true  Grant  to  which  full  prominence  had  not 
been  given,  possibly  because  Grant  himself  would  have 
regarded  them  as  matters  of  course,  there  came  the 
desire  to  write  of  our  great  commander  as  he  seemed 
to  one  of  the  least  of  these  his  subalterns,  and  from  the 
fulness  of  a  store  of  information  garnered  through 
reading  and  hearing  for  half  a  century  this  memoir 
practically  wrote  itself.  The  real  work  came  when  it 
had  to  be  planed  and  pruned  to  the  prescribed  limits. 

Grant's  own  memoirs,  the  biographies  of  Badeau, 
James  Grant  Wilson  and  a  score  of  writers,  but  espe 
cially  the  soldierly  pages  of  Horace  Porter,  James  Harri 
son  Wilson  and  William  Conant  Church  have  been  read 
again  and  again.  From  the  lips  of  Sherman,  Sheridan, 
Cullum,  Crook,  Augur,  Pitcher,  Buckner,  Longstreet, 
Hebert,  Hodges,  Upton,  Chetlain,  Professors  Davies, 
Mahan,  Church  and  Kendrick,  and  from  many  an  officer 
of  the  Armies  of  the  Tennessee,  Cumberland  and  Poto 
mac,  came  in  the  course  of  years  a  flood  of  reminiscence, 
and  from  old  neighbors  of  the  dreary  days  of  "  Hard- 
scrabble  "  and  Jo  Daviess  County  many  a  detail  of 
pathetic  interest. 

To  one  and  all  these,  therefore,  thanks  are  due,  and 
in  the  matter  of  our  illustrations  the  worthy  mayors  of 


PREFACE 

Georgetown  and  Galena  (Messrs.  Charles  B.  Fee  and 
J.  W.  Westwick),  Lieutenant  Harry  L.  King,  U.  S. 
Cavalry,  the  Chicago  Historical  Society,  companions  of 
the  Illinois  Commandery  of  the  State  of  Illinois,  Mili 
tary  Order  of  the  Loyal  Legion,  Mr.  Charles  H.  Ste 
phens  of  Philadelphia,  Mr.  F.  H.  Meserve  of  New  York 
who  has  permitted  so  many  reproductions  from  his  col 
lection,  Mrs.  Frank  H.  Jones  (Nellie  Grant),  Mr. 
Hamlin  Garland,  Mr.  E.  Ross  Burke,  the  St.  Louis 
Post-Dispatch,  Mr.  Warren  Crawford  of  Chicago,  others 
whose  names  appear  in  connection  with  the  illustrations, 
and  finally  General  E.  A.  Spencer,  Mr.  C.  F.  Blanke  and 
Major  Julius  Pitzman  of  St.  Louis — the  latter  intimately 
associated  nearly  sixty  years  ago  with  the  fortunes  and 
misfortunes  of  the  Grants — are  entitled  to  grateful 
acknowledgment. 

And  now,  with  full  realization  of  the  responsibilities, 
but  without  the  Grant-like  lack  of  fear,  this  memoir  is 
submitted  by 

THE  AUTHOR 

MILWAUKEE,  April  30,  1914 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  ANCESTRY  AND  BIRTH 1 1 

II.  BOYHOOD  AND  MOTHER 22 

III.  A  SOLDIER  IN  SPITE  OF  HIMSELF 31 

IV.  CADET  LIFE  AND  COMRADES 40 

V.  WEST  POINT  AND  ITS  PROFESSORS 49 

VI.  WEST  POINT  AND  ITS  CURRICULUM 57 

VII.  FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  ARMY  LIFE 70 

VIII.  AN  INTERRUPTED  COURTSHIP 80 

IX.  THE  WAR  WITH  MEXICO 88 

X.  A  FIGHTING  QUARTERMASTER 95 

XI.  THE  SOLDIER  OF  SAN  COSME 104 

XII.  PEACE— THE  PACIFIC  COAST  AND  TROUBLE 116 

XIII.  THE  USES  OF  ADVERSITY 132 

XIV.  SOLDIER  A  SECOND  TIME 140 

XV.  "THE  STARS  OF  SIXTY-ONE" 151 

XVI.  SOLDIER  IN  SPITE  OF  STAFF  AND  KINDRED 162 

XVII.  THE  REWARDS  OF  DONELSON 174 

XVIII.  FROM  DONELSON  TO  SHILOH 185 

XIX.  SHILOH — THE  ONE  SURPRISE 196 

XX.  THE  SORROW  AFTER  SHILOH 204 

XXI.  GRANT  AND  RAWLINS 211 

XXII.  GRANT  AND  MCCLERNAND 220 

XXIII.  GRANT  AND  A  GREAT  CAMPAIGN 233 

XXIV.  GRANT  IN  THE  HOUR  OF  TRIUMPH 239 

XXV.  WHAT  FOLLOWED  VICKSBURG 247 

XXVI.  GRANT  AND  THOMAS 256 

XXVII.  GRANT  AND  SHERMAN 267 

XXVIII.  GRANT  AND  THE  LIEUTENANT-GENERALSHIP.  . . .  275 

XXIX.  THE  LULL  BEFORE  THE  STORM 284 


CONTENTS 

XXX.  OBSTACLES  AND  DELAYS 300 

XXXI.  THE  LAST  CAMPAIGN 313 

XXXII.  PEACE  AND  PERPLEXITIES 323 

XXXIII.  PROBLEMS  AND  POLITICS 333 

XXXIV.  ON  TO  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 341 

XXXV.  PRESIDENT  AND  COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF 352 

XXXVI.  STORM  AND  STRESS 362 

XXXVII.  FOREIGN  TRAVEL  AND  FINAL  RETURN 372 

XXXVIII.  THE  FINAL  BLOW 382 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Grant  as  Major-General  Commanding  in  the  West.  Frontispiece 

Jesse  Root  Grant 18 

Hannah  Simpson  Grant 18 

Birthplace  of  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  Point  Pleasant,  Ohio 20 

The  Leather  Store  at  Galena,  111 20 

Grant's  Boyhood  Home,  Georgetown,  Ohio 22 

Major-General  Charles  F.  Smith 52 

"White  Haven,"  the  Old  Home  of  the  Dent  Family  near  St. 

Louis 76 

Sketch  of  the  Grant  and  Dent  Farms  and  Roads  to  St.  Louis 

and  Jefferson  Barracks 86 

Ulysses  S.  Grant,  While  Lieutenant  4th  Infantry 118 

"  Hardscrabble  "  as  at  Present 132 

Colonel  Dent's  House  in  St.  Louis  Where  Grant  was  Married, 

1848 134 

House  Where  Grant  Lived  in  St.  Louis  in  1859 134 

First  House  at  Galena,  111.,  Occupied  by  Grant  and  His  Family 

in  1860-61,  as  it  now  Looks  after  Many  Repairs 138 

U.  S.  Grant  as  a  Brigadier- General,  November,  1861 152 

Grant's  Galena  Comrades-in-Arms 162 

Major-General  James  H.  Wilson  at  the  Close  of  the  Civil  War  216 

Grant's  Old  Grimsley  and  Bridle 234 

General  W.  T.  Sherman 284 

Grant  at  Cold  Harbor 310 

The  McLean  Homestead,  Appomattox 320 

Grant  and  His  Personal  Staff 3^4 

Julia  Dent  Grant  in  1866 340 

Parlor  of  the  Galena  Home  as  Presented  to  Grant  after  the 

Civil  War 34& 

Hon.  Hamilton  Fish 352 

Hon.  Elihu  B.  Washburne 352 

Grant  the  Banker,  1883 380 

The  Last  Days.    Grant  and  Family  at  Mount  McGregor 386 


The   True 
Ulysses  S.  Grant 

CHAPTER  I 
ANCESTRY  AND  BIRTH 

FORTY-FIVE  miles  from  Cincinnati  and  a  little  south 
of  east  there  lies  a  country  town  that  should  live  in  his 
tory.  At  the  time  of  Abraham  Lincoln's  election  to  the 
presidency  it  mustered  probably  a  thousand  souls.  It 
numbered  possibly  two  hundred  voters  whose  suffrages 
went  largely  with  those  of  the  Democratic  party.  It 
seems  that  most  people  of  southeastern  Ohio  had  been 
Southern  in  sentiment  and  pro-slavery  in  politics  until 
that  April  morning  of  1861,  when  the  guns  of  Sumter, 
solemnly  booming  their  parting  salute  to  the  flag  they 
had  so  vehemently  yet  vainly  defended,  sounded  a 
reveille  that  woke  the  sleeping  North. 

Then  of  a  sudden  an  apparently  passive,  peace-loving 
nation  that  knew  little  of  the  use  of  arms,  came  clamor 
ing  to  the  recruiting  offices  when  the  President  issued 
his  call  for  men.  Their  one  demand  v/as  to  be  led 
against  those  whose  aim  was  the  destruction  of  the 
Union  and  whose  act  had  been  the  humbling  of  the  Flag. 
The  transformation  was  as  sudden  as  it  was  surprising. 
The  South  had  looked  for  nothing  like  it.  Long  accus 
tomed  to  dominate  in  the  affairs  of  the  nation,  having 
only  fifteen  years  earlier  compelled  and  brought  about 
an  utterly  unjust  war  for  the  purpose  of  enlarging  and 
extending  slave  territory,  having  long  cherished  the 
belief  that  the  North,  absorbed  in  commercial  pursuits, 
would  shrink  from  fighting  even  in  defense  of  a  prin 
ciple,  the  South  had  now  to  face  a  war  for  which,  like 
that  with  Mexico,  it  was  mainly  responsible,  but  which 

ii 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

promised  very  different  results.  Yet  the  South  was  con 
fident.  Late  as  early  April  the  greatest  city  of  the  Union, 
New  York,  had  listened  unremonstrant  to  secession 
speeches,  and  viewed  without  protest  secession  emblems 
flaunted  in  the  corridors  of  some  of  its  leading  hotels. 
Ten  hours  and  all  this  was  changed.  The  news  from 
Charleston  broke  the  shell  of  tolerance,  and  the  pent-up 
patriotism  of  the  North  burst  forth.  Its  best  and  bravest 
sought  instant  service,  and,  in  proportion  to  population 
and  previous  condition  of  political  servitude,  no  commun 
ity  outdid  that  of  little  Georgetown,  Brown  County,  Ohio. 

Four  generals  and  one  colonel,  graduates  of  West 
Point,  and  nine  more  officers  of  general  or  field  rank,  all 
reared  in  that  peaceful  township,  were  enrolled  for  de 
fense  of  the  Union.  For  the  cause  of  the  South,  in  spite 
of  divided  sentiment  as  to  slavery,  and  even  as  to  right  of 
secession,  it  seems  to  have  furnished  none.  As  for  indi 
vidual  merit  or  value  of  officers  born  or  "  raised  "  in 
Georgetown,  the  great  cities  of  the  North  combined  can 
lay  claim  to  nothing  to  match  a  single  record  of  a  George 
town  boy,  known  to  the  world  as  Ulysses  Simpson  Grant. 

That  was  not  his  baptismal  name.  Hiram  Ulysses  * 
he  had  been  registered  in  babyhood,  Hiram  being  his 
father's  choice,  Ulysses  that  of  a  grandmother  who  had 
read  much  of  that  soldier  solon  of  the  Trojan  war. 
Nor  was  Georgetown  his  birthplace.  "  Ulyss,"  as  he 
seems  to  have  been  hailed  about  the  homestead,  first 
saw  the  light  of  day  at  Point  Pleasant  on  the  banks  of 
the  Ohio,  only  a  few  miles  away  in  Claremont  County. 
But  in  that  beautiful  hill  country  over  against  the  Ken 
tucky  shore  he  spent  his  boyhood,  and  at  the  age  of 
seventeen  set  forth  upon  a  career  he  never  would  have 
chosen,  enlisted,  as  it  were,  in  a  service  utterly  repug- 

*  Grant  was  never  formally  baptized  until  late  in  life,  and 
then,  by  his  own  choice,  as  Ulysses  S.  He  would  not  take  the 
full  name  of  Simpson,  which  was  borne  by  his  younger  brother, 
but  elected  to  be  baptized  as  he  had  been  so  long  and  well  known 
to  the  Nation.  J2 


ANCESTRY  AND  BIRTH 

nant  to  his  tastes  and  ambitions,  became  the  foremost 
leader  in  a  profession  for  which  he  had  felt  himself  the 
least  fitted,  and  the  foremost  citizen  in  a  nation  whereof 
he  had  deemed  himself  among  the  most  obscure.  Born 
but  a  few  years  before  him  and  but  a  few  hours'  journey 
beyond  the  winding  river,  reared  in  poverty  and 
obscurity  exceeding  that  of  the  Ohio  boy  destined  to 
become  his  right  arm,  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  wisest,  the 
gentlest,  the  greatest  of  the  nation's  leaders,  rose, 
through  thought  and  observation  of  men,  to  guide  the 
Union  through  the  crisis  of  its  history.  Study  and 
statesmanship  bore  him  on  to  the  pinnacle  of  fame. 

The  Ohio  lad  who  proved  his  main  reliance  was 
neither  scholar,  student,  nor  even  sound  in  his  knowl 
edge  of  men.  Our  modern  Ulysses  won  his  way  to 
eminence  through  sheer  soldiership — about  the  last 
thing  on  earth  he  would  have  selected  as  the  means. 
Therefore  is  his  career  the  most  remarkable  of  his 
day  and  generation  if  not  of  our  national  history.  It 
has  even  persuaded  some  writers  into  the  belief  that 
he  was  what  they  called  him — Grant,  "  The  Man  of 
Mystery." 

Of  the  lives  of  other  men  who  had  become  great  it 
would  seem  that,  unlike  Lincoln,  Grant  had  read  but 
little.  Speaking  of  this,  he  declared  in  after  life  that 
what  he  most  wished  to  know  of  the  great  leaders  of 
men  was  that  concerning  which  the  least  was  generally 
written :  he  longed  to  hear  of  the  boy  life,  the  home  life, 
the  school  life,  the  formative  period  in  the  lives  of  those 
whom  the  world  had  declared  famous.  He  wished  to 
study  the  influences  that  had  served  to  mold  the  char 
acter  of  men  of  eminence,  of  commanding  powers  in 
the  affairs  of  peace  or  of  surpassing  generalship  in  the 
field  of  war.  And  now  were  he  to  study  the  pages  of 
his  own  life,  though  he  has  had  more  biographers, 
apparently,  than  any  other  American,  he  might  suffer 
keen  disappointment,  for  beyond  his  own  modest  narra- 

13 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

tive  there  is  little  if  anything  to  draw  from,  so  placid 
and  uneventful  were  the  days  of  his  boyhood,  so  serene 
and  simple  the  village  life  in  which  he  moved  and  had 
his  being. 

Grant  himself  cared  little  for  genealogy.  Great 
names  and  lofty  lineage  inspired  him  with  no  especial 
feeling  of  awe,  much  less  of  reverence.  In  the  presence 
of  royalty  he  later  stood  quite  unabashed  and  calmly 
at  ease.  It  mattered  little  to  him  from  what  particular 
clan  across  the  seas  his  sires  were  sprung.  It  was  suffi 
cient  for  him  that  because  for  eight  generations  his 
immediate  forebears  had  made  their  way  on  American 
soil,  he  could  claim  to  be  thoroughly  American.  When 
in  large  numbers  the  descendants  of  the  proud  old 
Grant  clan  answered  the  call  of  their  putative  head,  a 
field  marshal  of  the  British  Army,  our  Grant  courteously 
but  firmly  declined.  "  We  have  been  Americans  over 
two  hundred  years,"  said  he,  and  he  could  trace  his 
descent  in  unbroken  line  back  to  Matthew  Grant,  to 
Dorchester,  Massachusetts,  and  to  May,  1625.  The 
Grants  had  been  Americans  too  long,  he  thought,  to  feel 
sure  they  had  ever  been  Scotch. 

But  there  are  those  to  whom  family  tradition  means 
more  than  it  did  to  Grant.  It  is  for  the  benefit  of  such, 
therefore,  that  his  genealogy  is  here  given  as  recorded 
by  James  Grant  Wilson : 

1.  Matthew  and  Priscilla  ( )   married  1625. 

2.  Samuel  and  Mary  (Porter)   married  1658. 

3.  Samuel  and  Grace  (Miner)  married  1688. 

4.  Noah  and  Martha  (Huntington)  married  1717. 

5.  Noah  and  Susannah   (Delano)   married  1746. 

6.  Noah  and  Rachel  (Kelly)  married  1791. 

7.  Jesse  Root  and  Hannah    (Simpson)   married  1821. 

8.  Hiram  Ulysses,  later  known  as  Ulysses  Simpson,  born 

April  27,  1822. 

Of  all  these  ancestors  few  achieved  distinction  of 
any  kind.  The  first  Matthew  made  his  home  at  Wind 
sor,  on  the  banks  of  the  Connecticut,  and  for  no  less 

14 


ANCESTRY  AND  BIRTH 

than  forty  years  was  county  surveyor.  His  eldest  son, 
the  first  "  Sam  "  Grant  in  the  American  line,  took  up 
lands  on  the  opposite  bank  from  Windsor,  and  to  the 
days  when  one  of  their  kith  and  kin  sat  as  chief  magis 
trate  of  the  entire  nation,  those  lands  were  occupied  by 
descendants  of  the  original  Sam. 

Troublous  times  came  to  the  colonists.  Quitting 
England  in  quest  of  the  blessings  of  religious  liberty, 
the  Pilgrim  Fathers  had  landed  on  the  "  stern  and  rock- 
bound  coast,"  where  they  speedily  showed  themselves  as 
intolerant  of  forms  of  worship  other  than  their  own 
as  ever  had  been  the  narrowest  of  the  church  party  at 
home.  The  early  days  were  to  the  full  as  strenuous  as 
ever  had  been  those  of  their  elders  in  Albion.  Beset 
by  savage  foes,  the  settlers  tilled  the  fields  with  their 
antique  firearms  strapped  to  the  plough  handles.  They 
appeared  even  at  divine  worship  full  panoplied  for 
fight.  They  took  their  king's  shilling  and  "  listed  "  for 
the  wars  against  French  and  Indian,  learning  much 
thereby  that  reacted  on  His  Majesty's  loyal  forces  when 
later  his  recalcitrant  subjects  denounced  in  convention 
their  monarch  and  his  minions,  fiercely  as  in  their 
covenant  they  renounced  the  devil  and  all  his  works. 
Noah  and  Sol  Grant,  of  the  fifth  descending  generation 
from  Matthew,  fought  valiantly  as  commissioned 
officers  in  the  British  ranks,  and  both  were  killed  in 
1756.  Noah,  the  next,  he  of  the  sixth  generation  and 
the  grandfather  of  the  great  Grant  of  our  day,  was  just 
nine  years  old  when  his  father  and  uncle  died  fighting 
for  the  king's  colors,  and  twenty  years  thereafter  with 
all  his  might  he  lived  and  fought  against  them.  He 
"  went  to  the  wars  "  with  the  Connecticut  line,  served 
all  through  from  Bunker  Hill  to  Yorktown,  yet  in  the 
midst  of  war's  alarms  was  human  enough  to  yield,  as 
later  did  his  illustrious  grandson,  to  promptings  of  the 
tender  passion.  Unlike  the  latter,  he  had  not  to  wait 
until  the  close  of  hostilities  to  claim  the  lady  of  his  love. 

15 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Soon  after  the  surrender  of  Cornwallis  he  found  him 
self  once  more  in  Connecticut,  father  of  two  sturdy  little 
Grants,  but  a  widower.  Leaving  the  elder  lad  with 
kin  folk  at  home,  Noah  took  Peter,  the  younger,  to 
Westmoreland  County,  Pennsylvania,  and  as  "  Cap " 
Grant,  the  characteristic  American  abbreviation  of  his 
military  title,  started  life  anew,  presently  marrying  for 
the  second  time,  and  this  time  a  name  suggestive  of  the 
shamrock  rather  than  the  thistle,  for  the  grandmother 
of  our  Ulysses  was  a  Kelly.  Later  still  one  more  move 
was  made  and  this  time  to  southern  Ohio. 

In  this  move  young  Peter  did  not  participate. 
Peter's  mother  had  been  a  Connecticut  Yankee,  and  her 
boy  was  born  with  a  sense  of  the  value  of  money  and  a 
gift  for  business.  Noah,  the  father,  like  many  another 
soldier,  had  neither.  Peter  had  no  prejudice  against 
his  stepmother,  nor  the  brothers  and  sisters  who  speedily 
came  to  swell  the  family  expense  account,  but  he  saw 
the  need  of  cutting  loose  and  providing  for  himself. 
In  brief,  Peter  moved  to  Maysville,  Kentucky,  per 
severed,  prospered,  married,  raised  a  large  family  and 
a  larger  business,  becoming  owner  of  a  tannery  among 
other  properties,  taking  to  his  roof  and  heart  again  the 
aging  and  impecunious  father,  when  in  1805  Noah's 
second  wife  died,  "  leaving  seven  children,"  says  our 
own  Grant  in  his  Memoirs,  the  two  youngest  going  with 
their  father  to  live  upon  the  bounty  of  the  one  pros 
perous  and  thrifty  member  of  the  family.  When  Peter 
Grant  was  finally  drowned  in  the  Kanawha,  in  1825,  he 
was  one  of  the  wealthy  men  of  the  West,  and  he  had 
been  a  devoted  son  to  the  Revolutionary  soldier  and  a 
protector  to  many  of  his  younger  kinsfolk. 

Of  these  latter,  however,  there  were  some  who 
strove  to  make  their  own  way  in  the  world.  Foremost 
was  the  eldest  of  Peter's  half  brothers,  Jesse  Root. 
Jesse,  at  the  breakup  of  the  family  in  1805,  found  a 
home  in  the  household  of  Judge  Tod,  of  Deerfield, 

16 


ANCESTRY  AND  BIRTH 

Ohio.  Good  and  charitable  folk  must  these  have  been, 
for  they  took  the  motherless  boy  to  their  fireside  and 
cherished  him  as  though  he  had  been  their  own.  A 
hard-headed,  argumentative  citizen  young  Jesse  grew 
to  be,  a  man  never  conspicuous  for  softness  of  heart  or 
sweetness  of  disposition,  yet  to  his  dying  day  Jesse 
Grant  could  never  speak  of  Judge  Tod  or  the  judge's 
gentle  wife  without  emotion.  "  She  was  the  most 
admirable  woman  I  ever  knew/'  he  often  declared.  As 
for  the  judge,  there  was  no  bound  to  the  respect  and 
esteem  in  which  Jesse  held  him.  As  an  inmate  of  their 
home  it  is  presumable  that  Jesse  must  have  well  known 
the  son,  who,  in  point  of  public  life  and  prominence, 
outranked  the  genial  and  kindly  father.  Governor  Tod, 
the  son,  became  one  the  nation  heard  of  and  the  state 
admired,  but  in  the  eyes  of  Jesse  Root  the  governor 
never  stood  on  a  plane  with  his  father,  the  judge. 

It  was  presently  the  lot  of  Jesse  Grant  to  become 
identified  with  another  famous  family  and  world-re 
nowned  name.  For  a  year  or  so  he  had  been  taken  over 
by  Peter  to  learn  the  trade  of  a  tanner.  Returning  to 
Deerfield,  Jesse  found  a  home  and  employment  with  a 
family  of  Browns — benevolent  and  unpretentious  people 
who  might  never  have  been  heard  of  but  for  a  son, 
John,  a  mere  boy  when  Jesse,  a  well-grown  youth,  lived 
in  daily  association  with  him.  They  grew  to  know  each 
other  better,  to  differ  widely  in  their  views  on  political 
matters,  but  to  remain  good  friends.  "  He  was  a  man 
of  great  purity  of  character,"  declared  Jesse,  after 
wards,  "  of  high  moral  and  physical  courage,"  as 
recorded  by  Jesse's  famous  son,  "but  a  fanatic  and 
extremist  in  whatever  he  advocated."  This  was  said  of 
him  who  later  became  known  to  the  world  as  "  Ossa- 
watomie "  Brown.  This  was  the  Ossawatomie  of 
whom  two  million  or  more  battling  men  in  blue  were 
destined  to  sing  that  his  body  lay  mouldering  in  the 
grave  as  his  soul  was  marching  on.  This  was  he  whose 
2  17 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

mad  fanaticism  led  him,  with  a  handful  of  followers, 
to  attempt  the  invasion  of  a  sovereign  state,  and  to  die 
self-martyred  on  the  scaffold.  This  was  he  who,  before 
surrendering  to  Colonel  Robert  E.  Lee  at  Harper's 
Ferry,  practically  brought  about  the  tremendous  war 
which  was  to  close  only  when  his  chivalric  captor  should 
in  turn  surrender  to  the  chivalric  son  of  his  boy  friend 
and  house  mate,  Jesse  Grant.  Verily,  it  would  seem 
that  in  Brown  County,  Ohio,  were  centred  for  the  time 
the  destinies  of  the  surrounding  nation.  Verily,  there 
is  food  for  thought  in  the  fact  that  while  the  fathers 
of  John  Brown  and  Ulysses  Grant  were  dwelling  under 
the  same  roof  in  southern  Ohio,  there  were,  a  few  years 
later,  to  be  spending  their  boyhood  in  Ohio  towns  within 
a  few  hours'  ride  of  one  another  the  three  embryo 
soldiers  destined  to  become,  in  the  tremendous  scenes 
soon  to  follow,  the  foremost  of  the  generals  who  fought 
to  save  the  Union — Grant,  Sherman  and  Sheridan. 

For  a  time  after  launching  out  for  himself  Jesse 
Grant  conducted  a  small  tannery  at  Ravenna.  Then  he 
moved  his  little  "  plant "  to  Point  Pleasant,  a  beautiful 
spot  on  the  Ohio.  In  June,  1821,  he  married  Hannah 
Simpson,  then  in  her  twenty-first  year,  the  third  child 
of  John  Simpson,  of  Montgomery  County,  Pennsyl 
vania,  a  man  who  cared  as  little  for  genealogy  as  his 
son-in-law  cared  much.  John  Simpson  could  tell 
nothing  of  his  line  further  back  than  his  grandfather. 
Jesse  Grant  had  every  birth,  death  and  date  for  seven 
generations  of  Grants  at  his  fingers'  ends.  Jesse 
Grant,  though  engaged  in  a  business  that  yielded  small 
profits,  was  keen  and  thrifty.  Jesse  Grant,  moreover, 
was  a  man  of  parts.  Schooling  he  had  had  next  to  none, 
but  he  had  learned  to  spell,  to  cipher,  and  he  taught 
himself  to  write.  A  more  rapacious  reader  than  Jesse 
Grant  was  not  to  be  found  in  southern  Ohio.  He  bor 
rowed  every  book  he  could  lay  hands  on  and  laboriously 
mastered  the  contents.  He  pored  over  the  papers,  and 

18 


ANCESTRY  AND  BIRTH 

took  part  in  impromptu  debates  innumerable.  He 
studied  politics  with  especial  avidity,  and  "  Harry  of 
the  West/'  Henry  Clay  of  Kentucky,  was  Jesse's  polit 
ical  file  leader.  Before  he  was  twenty-one  Jesse  Grant 
had  begun  writing  to  the  papers — a  fad  he  clung  to  long 
years  of  his  life,  even  after  his  soldier  son  besought 
that  he  stop  it.  There  was  a  time,  just  after  his  mar 
riage,  when,  weakened  by  fever  and  ague,  Jesse  became 
impoverished,  but  when  able  to  move  to  Georgetown, 
where  there  were  better  facilities  and  abundant  bark 
for  his  tannery,  he  began  again  to  prosper.  He  was 
aided  in  his  economies  by  a  gentle  and  sympathetic 
wife,  whom  their  first-born — the  boy  Hiram — devotedly 
loved.  She  bore  quite  a  family  and  reared  her  birdlings 
as  befitted  folk  in  very  moderate  circumstances.  Jesse 
was  a  sturdy  and  independent  soul  and  had  little  sym 
pathy  for  men  who  owed,  and  less  for  men  who  failed. 
The  time  was  to  come  when  this  trait  was  to  tell  heavily 
on  his  first-born,  but  the  boyhood  years  of  that  eldest 
hope  were  at  least  as  free  from  care  and  hardship  as 
they  were  from  luxury  of  any  kind. 

Born  on  the  27th  of  April,  1822,  the  future  foremost 
citizen  of  the  United  States  spent  his  babyhood  in  a  little 
frame  cottage  close  to  the  banks  of  the  Ohio.  The  site 
and  scene  are  beautiful.  The  home  was  humble  in  the 
extreme,  but  it  sufficed  for  all  their  needs  until  the 
baby  boy  was  over  a  year  old.  Then  Jesse  Grant  bundled 
up  his  few  belongings  and  moved  northeastward  to 
Georgetown,  in  the  adjoining  county. 

The  business  sagacity  of  Jesse  was  manifest  in 
this  move.  The  little  tannery  on  the  outskirts  of  the 
peaceful  country  village  prospered  from  the  start. 
Within  the  second  year  of  his  venture  Jesse  was  able  to 
build  a  comfortable  two-story  house  of  brick  and  stone. 
By  the  time  the  chubby-faced  first-born  was  toddling 
and  tumbling  about  the  new  premises,  the  cradle  was 
again  in  requisition,  and  to  Ulysses  was  born  a  baby 

19 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

brother.  In  the  course  of  the  eight  or  ten  years  in 
which  he  was  waxing  in  strength  and  usefulness  there 
came  sisters,  and  yet  another  baby  boy,  until  George 
town  could  have  boasted  of  six  young  Grants  who,  in 
order  of  rank  and  "  entry  into  service,"  as  soldiers  say, 
are  recorded  as  follows:  i.  Hiram  Ulysses.  2.  Simp 
son.  3.  Clara.  4.  (Virginia.  5.  Orvil  L.,  and  6.  Mary 
Frances. 

And  as  these  little  folk  in  turn  began  to  talk  and 
toddle  it  is  something  to  remember  that  in  their  eyes 
the  eldest,  the  big  brother,  was  for  long  years  decidedly 
a  hero.  The  paternal  given  name  of  Hiram  appears 
seldom  to  have  been  used.  "  Lys,"  or  at  most  "  Ulyss," 
the  youngsters  and  the  neighbors  called  him,  and  the 
father  seemed  eventually  to  have  followed  suit.  Just 
why  he  named  him  Hiram,  there  having  been  no  Hiram 
of  consequence  upon  the  family  tree,  the  father  has  not 
taken  the  trouble  to  explain.  That  the  boy's  maternal 
grandmother  had  developed  a  taste  for  classic  reading 
— that  she  was  a  woman  of  some  culture — is  manifest 
in  the  choice  of  the  name  she  so  greatly  admired.  The 
little  man  in  whose  coming  and  christening  she  took 
so  deep  an  interest,  lived  to  adorn  and  honor  it  as  even 
his  fond  mother  could  hardly  have  dared  to  dream — 
Ulysses,  the  warrior  sage  of  heroic  days  whose  life  has 
been  the  theme  of  the  poets  from  the  days  of  Homer, 
and  the  meditation  of  readers  for  centuries.  Was 
there  something  of  the  Sybil  in  that  second  wife  of  plain 
John  Simpson,  the  Pennsylvania  farmer, — he  who  had 
found  in  southern  Ohio  a  new  home  and  a  new  mother 
for  that  silent,  self-effacing,  prayerful  daughter?  It 
might  well  be  claimed  for  her ;  it  might  well  be  credited 
that  in  the  choice  of  that  name  she  had  unerringly  fore 
seen  the  future  of  that  baby  boy;  for,  when  all  is  said 
and  done,  when  all  his  ventures  as  soldier  and  man  are 
set  over  and  summed  up  as  against  the  puny  column  of 
his  faults  and  foibles,  lived  there  ever  a  man  since 

20 


BIRTHPLACE   OF   ULYSSES   S.    GRANT, 
POINT   PLEASANT,   OHIO 

From  "Ulysses  S.  Grant,  His  Life  and  Character,"  by  Hamlin  Garland. 
IJy  kind  permission  of  the  author  and  Messrs.  Doubleday,  1'aj^e  iV  Co. 


THE  LEATHER  STORE  AT  GALENA,  ILL. 

See  page  136 

From  a  photograph  in  the  i>ossessionof  Mi   Warren  Crawford 
of  Chicago 


ANCESTRY  AND  BIRTH 

Ulysses  of  old,  so  worthy  the  glowing  description 
penned  by  Fenelon  and  recalled  and  applied  to  our  own 
Ulysses  by  William  Conant  Church?  "  His  heart  is  of 
an  unfathomable  depth;  his  secret  lies  beyond  the  line 
of  subtlety  and  fraud ;  he  is  the  friend  of  truth,  saying 
nothing  that  is  false,  but,  when  it  is  necessary,  conced 
ing  what  is  true ;  his  wisdom,  as  it  were,  a  seal  upon  his 
lips,  which  is  never  broken  but  for  an  important  pur 
pose." 

Study  the  catalogue  of  Christian  names,  study  the 
life  and  character  of  this  first-born  son  of  Jesse  Grant, 
and  choose  if  possible  a  name  that  shall  better  fit  the 
man. 


CHAPTER  II 
BOYHOOD  AND   MOTHER 

AMONG  the  frugal,  simple  folk  that  made  up  the 
mass  of  the  population  of  our  western  States,  most  boys 
worked  in  one  way  or  another  as  soon  as  they  were  big 
enough  to  work  at  all.  The  "  senior  subaltern  "of  the 
household  in  the  new  two-story  home  on  the  banks  of 
the  White  Oak  began  before  he  was  big  enough  to  run 
errands.  Grant,  the  father,  divided  his  time  between 
his  tannery  and  the  newly-purchased  lands.  Grant, 
the  son,  decided  before  he  was  five  that  he  preferred 
the  farm.  Jesse  had  bought  a  number  of  acres  along 
the  wooded  banks  of  the  creek,  together  with  a  cleared 
patch  or  two  closer  to  the  household,  and  on  one  of 
these  stood  the  barn.  The  mother  hand  first  led  the 
youngster  to  watch  the  workmen,  and  then  sought  to 
restrain  him  as,  eagerly,  the  little  fellow  strove  to  reach 
the  horses  plodding  home  with  their  load  of  lumber. 
Barely  three  years  of  age  was  he  who  later  was  destined 
to  ride  at  the  head  of  two  million  of  men  at  arms,  when 
first  he  was  set  astride  a  horse,  and  it  appeared  that  the 
youngster  even  at  that  early  age  had  views  of  his  own 
as  to  horsemanship.  It  was  told  of  him  in  the  family 
that  the  chubby  fists  instantly  gathered  up  the  reins, 
and  that  he  promptly  and  impatiently  shook  off  the 
hand  that  sought  to  aid  him  in  his  seat.  Before  he  was 
four  the  boy  had  backed  every  horse  that  came  to  the 
little  farm,  and  was  spending  hours  each  day  studying 
the  pair  his  father  bought.  His  earliest  ambition  was 
to  ride.  From  morn  till  night  when  a  five-year-old  he 
hung  about  the  horses.  If  they  were  afield  hauling  wood 
or  stone,  he  was  perched  contentedly  astride  the  near 
one.  By  the  time  he  was  seven  he  was  practising  acro- 

22 


BOYHOOD  AND  MOTHER 

batic  feats  of  his  own  devising;  nor  had  he  yet  seen  a 
circus ;  that  and  resultant  essays  in  equitation  were  yet 
to  come.  Before  he  was  ten  years  of  age  all  Brown 
County,  however,  seems  to  have  heard  of  that  small 
boy  of  the  Grants — the  little  chap  that  could  ride  like  a 
monkey,  standing  and  balancing  on  one  leg,  running  the 
horses  up  and  down  the  soft  roadway  along  the  creek 
bank,  "  far  more  at  home  in  saddle,"  as  was  presently 
said  of  him,  "  than  he'll  ever  be  at  school." 

But  it  was  not  yet  time  for  school.  Moreover, 
schools  in  those  days  and  in  Ohio  were  few  and  far 
between.  Up  to  the  time  he  was  ten  years  old  about 
all  the  schooling  that  came  his  way  was  at  his 
mother's  knee,  and  there  the  boy  learned  lessons  that 
influenced  his  entire  life.  Home  from  his  labor  in  the 
tannery  or  the  field,  Jesse,  the  father,  lost  himself 
speedily  in  the  columns  of  the  Cincinnati  papers,  in  the 
pages  of  his  book,  in  letters  to  the  press,  or  in  the 
evenings  of  debate  on  mooted  questions  at  the  town  hall. 
The  mental  and  moral  training  of  the  children  in  their 
tender  years  seems  to  have  been  left  entirely  to  the 
mother,  and  what  they  owe  to  her  no  one  of  their 
number  has  ever  adequately  told.  Ulysses,  at  least, 
strove  hard  to  do  so,  for  in  letters  written  to  her  long 
years  after,  especially  in  those  that  were  penned  in  his 
"  plebedom  "  at  West  Point,  he  opened  his  heart,  and 
told  her  how  deeply  her  teachings  had  taken  root — how 
firmly  implanted  were  the  lessons  of  truth,  patience, 
self-sacrifice  and  of  reverence  for  religion  that  he  had 
learned  from  her  gentle  lips.  A  rare  woman  was 
Hannah  Simpson;  sweet  and  comely  to  look  upon  in 
youth,  she  had  gained  in  her  maturity  an  added  dignity 
of  bearing.  A  silent,  observant  nature  was  hers. 
Deeply  religious  in  temperament,  reared  in  the  austere 
and  solemn  tenets  of  the  Methodist  church,  she  looked 
upon  life  with  eyes  that  saw  only  its  duties  and  respon 
sibilities.  She  had  a  smile  for  every  one,  but  laughter 

23 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

with  her  was  as  rare  as  wrath  or  anger.  Soft  of  speech, 
just,  gentle,  yet  firm  and  steadfast,  she  proved  an 
admirable  help  and  stay  for  the  sometimes  erratic 
Jesse;  but  for  her  children  she  was  a  guide  and  com 
fort  unspeakable.  Chiding  when  necessary,  but  "  nag 
ging  "  never,  she  watched  over  her  little  brood  with  the 
vigilance  of  the  mother  partridge.  Shielding  them  ever 
from  that  which  menaced  their  innocence  or  their  well- 
being,  she  reared  her  children  pure  of  heart  and  pure  of 
speech,  and  the  best  of  her,  because  he  had  the  most  of 
her,  seems  to  have  concentrated  in  Ulysses. 

Before  he  was  six  the  boy  was  helping  her  about  the 
woodshed  and  kitchen.  Before  he  was  seven  he  could 
groom  and  harness,  feed  and  water,  ride  and  drive  any 
horse  about  the  growing  farm.  By  the  time  he  was 
eight  he  lived  all  day  afield,  doing  the  "  chores  "  about 
the  house,  bringing  in  the  wood  and  water  and  driving 
the  cows  to  and  from  pasture.  But  his  glory  and  his 
principal  care  were  his  father's  horses;  the  tannery  he 
could  never  abide.  He  saw  nothing  in  the  trade  that 
did  not  repel  him,  whereas  he  would  gravely  study  for 
hours  the  work  of  the  plowmen,  the  woodmen,  the  har 
rowing,  seeding,  planting  and  mowing,  and,  as  best  he 
could,  strove  to  imitate  or  improve  upon  their  methods. 
But  about  the  horses  he  had  methods  of  his  own.  It 
began  to  dawn  upon  the  elders  and  their  "  help  "  that 
between  the  lad  and  his  big  four-footed  friends  there 
lived  some  strange  sympathy  and  understanding.  With 
less  trouble,  with  fewer  words  and  no  blows,  the  boy 
could  get  more  out  of  the  farm  horses  in  the  way  of 
willing  work  than  could  any  of  the  grown  folk. 

And  so  it  resulted  that  in  the  fall  of  the  year  when 
the  wood  choppers  had  felled  the  destined  trees,  though 
small  for  his  years  and  only  eight  that  spring,  it  was  the 
boy  who  took  charge  of  all  the  hauling.  The  men 
loaded  or  unloaded  the  firewood,  but  no  one  thought 
of  meddling  with  the  team.  Perched  on  top  of  the 

24 


BOYHOOD  AND  MOTHER 

pile,  with  his  bright,  blue-gray  eyes  and  his  sun- tanned, 
cheery  face,  the  lad  would  cluck  to  his  friends,  the 
horses,  and  they  would  start  for  home.  Almost  any 
farm-bred  boy  would  probably  be  whistling,  but  if  ever 
our  Ulysses  hummed  or  whistled  an  air  he  could  not 
for  the  life  of  him  tell  the  name  of  it.  All  tunes  were 
alike  to  him,  and  he  had  no  love  for  any.  Only  once  in 
all  his  career  is  there  record  of  his  being  moved  by 
music,  martial,  sacred  or  secular;  that  was  when,  at  his 
signal,  the  stars  and  stripes  slowly  floated  to  the  peak 
of  the  flagstaff  overlooking  the  mighty  river  that  from 
that  instant  flowed  "  unvexed  to  the  sea,"  and  the  massed 
bands,  and  the  myriad  voices  of  a  host  of  battle-worn 
men  broke  forth  in  the  triumphant  strains  of  thanks 
giving  and  praise,  and  the  walls  of  Vicksburg  resounded 
to  the  solemn  harmonies  of  "  Old  Hundred." 

But  Jesse  Grant,  himself  unschooled,  was  none  the 
less  a  student  and  a  thinker;  Jesse,  who  was  self-edu 
cated,  believed  implicitly  in  education  for  his  children, 
and  early  in  the  boyhood  of  his  first-born  began  to  look 
about  for  schools.  Such  as  they  had  in  Brown  and 
Claremont  Counties  were  known  as  "  subscription 
schools,"  and  in  one  of  these  Ulysses  began  his  lessons. 
He  didn't  like  them.  He  much  preferred  the  farm,  and 
the  sight  of  a  strange  horse  would  tempt  him  away  from 
his  desk  and  into  the  street,  the  misconduct  leading  to 
reprisals  such  as  were  practised  in  that  day  and  gen 
eration. 

When  Ulysses  Grant  was  eleven  years  of  age  he 
was  doing  much  of  the  plowing,  planting,  seeding  and 
hoeing  about  his  father's  farm,  yet,  obedient  to  his 
father's  wishes,  never  missing  a  day  of  the  school  term. 
When  he  was  placed  a  quarter,  and  later  a  winter,  at  a 
time,  as  a  boarder  in  a  private  school  at  Hillsboro,  or 
over  at  Maysville,  Kentucky,  with  local  masters  of  much 
repute,  Ulysses  declared  that  such  was  his  natural 
repugnance  to  school  books  that  he  believed  the  money 

25 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

spent  on  his  education  was  utterly  wasted.  Moreover, 
it  seems  that  by  one  of  his  masters,  an  expert  in  that 
method  of  imparting  instruction,  the  future  head  of 
the  nation  was  occasionally  and  soundly  flogged. 

It  is  characteristic  of  Grant  that  he  should  write  of 
this  teacher,  Mr.  J.  D.  White,  that  he  was  a  kind- 
hearted,  excellent  man,  that  he  did  only  as  did  almost 
every  other  pedagogue  of  his  time, — that  he,  the  often 
birched  and  berated  pupil,  bore  no  ill  will  whatever  to 
the  wielder  of  the  rod.  What  we  should  like  to  know, 
and  what  he  does  not  tell  us,  is  just  how  he  took  it  at 
the  time.  It  is  hazarding  little  to  say  that  he  bore  it 
silently,  with  set  teeth  and  perhaps  tearless  eyes.  It 
is  hazarding  nothing  to  say  that  other  future  lieutenant 
generals  of  the  army  of  the  United  States  were  learning 
vis  a  tergo  the  lessons  of  fortitude  and  self  repression, 
for,  each  in  his  day,  two  of  them,  Sherman  and  Sheri 
dan,  as  we  have  said,  were  reared  almost  within  long 
gunshot  of  each  other  and  barely  one  hundred  miles 
northeast  of  the  Georgetown  home. 

And  yet  Ulysses  was  anything  but  a  vicious  or 
heedless  boy.  He  was  as  square  and  dependable  a  lad 
as  lived  in  all  Ohio.  He  was  industry  itself  about  the 
farm.  He  was  gentle,  docile,  thoughtful  about  the 
house.  He  was  of  serious  mold,  little  given  to  mirth 
or  mischief.  He  says  that  in  his  home  life  he  was  never 
punished  or  scolded,  for  his  father  appreciated  his  use 
fulness  and  was  probably  proud  of  his  horse  knowledge. 
At  an  unusually  early  age  the  boy  was  permitted  to  take 
any  of  the  animals,  winter  or  summer,  single  or  double, 
and  go  driving  about  the  country,  sometimes  visiting 
his  Simpson  grandparents,  frequently  visiting  Cincin 
nati;  once  or  twice  driving  neighbors,  where  stages 
were  not  to  be  had,  distances  of  seventy  or  eighty  miles. 
In  summer  time  he  went  swimming  with  other  farm  or 
village  lads,  in  winter  sledding,  sleighing  and  skating. 
He  had  no  real  intimacies  among  his  neighbors  and  no 

26 


BOYHOOD  AND  MOTHER 

real  enemies.  He  had  many  friends,  and  so  far  as  he 
recalled,  only  one  fight,  and  that  was  with  a  boy  bigger 
than  himself  and  something  of  a  bully.  "  Ulyss  "  was 
slender  but  sinewy,  small  but  plucky,  and  when  tor 
mented  beyond  endurance  turned  upon  his  tormentor, 
as  the  latter  hoped  and  planned  in  anticipation  of  easy 
victory  over  the  lad  he  envied  because  so  many  others 
hailed  him  as  the  best  rider  in  southern  Ohio.  It  may 
be  that  this  happened  just  after  "  Ulyss  "  had  won  the 
plaudits  of  all  Brown  County  and  the  ringmaster's  five 
dollars  by  riding  the  trick  pony  when  the  great  event  of 
the  year  took  place  and  the  circus  came  to  Georgetown. 
It  was  a  battered  but  victorious  Ulysses  that  went  home 
after  that  memorable  combat  on  the  banks  of  White 
Oak  Creek ;  nor  was  that  the  only  adventure  that  befell 
him  thereon.  Once  when  fishing  with  a  boy  friend  (the 
future  Admiral  Ammen),  it  fell  out  that  the  future 
general  fell  in  and  was  for  a  moment  or  two  in  grievous 
plight.  Admiral  Ammen  laughed  throughout  a  life 
time  over  the  picture  presented  by  the  bedraggled 
Ulysses,  as  he  led  him  dripping  up  the  bank.  His 
blouse  or  "  jumper  "  was  of  red  and  white  striped  Mar 
seilles  when  the  boys  went  forth  together,  but  the  stripes 
were  merged  in  one  limp  and  lurid  blotch  as  they  drew 
near  home. 

When  fifteen  years  of  age  young  Grant's  repute  as 
a  horseman  had  spread  to  adjoining  counties.  He  knew 
the  points  of  a  good  roadster  as  well  as  any  trader  along 
the  Ohio,  but  his  chief  delight  was  in  a  fine  saddler. 
Over  in  Kentucky  the  fox  trot  and  the  single  foot  were 
the  gaits  most  favored,  but  Ulysses  had  a  way  of  teach 
ing  the  pace  that  added  to  his  fame  and  not  a  little  to  his 
fortune.  In  his  Memoirs  this  fact  finds  no  mention — 
neither  does  he  tell  about  the  memorable  day  when  in 
the  presence  of  all  the  pretty  girls  for  miles  around  and 
hundreds  of  town  and  village  folk,  he  circled  the  circus 
astride  that  plunging  trick  mule  (neither  does  he  men- 

27 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

tion  his  later  fame  as  by  long  odds  the  best  rider  of  his 
day  at  West  Point),  but  Brown  and  Claremont  Counties 
knew  it,  and  farmers  far  and  near  brought  horses  to 
the  fields  of  Jesse  Grant,  there  to  be  taught  to  pace  by 
Jesse's  eldest  son.  In  this  way  and  in  "  hiring  out "  to 
convey  travellers  long  distances  over  the  Ohio  and 
Kentucky  roads,  Ulysses  had  earned  no  little  money, 
much  of  which, — several  hundred  dollars,  says  one  of 
his  most  conservative  biographers, — he  thriftily  saved, 
for  his  one  consuming  desire  as  he  reached  his  seven 
teenth  year  was  to  be  a  "  travelled  man." 

No  boy  of  his  acquaintance  had  then  seen  as  much 
of  the  world  as  Ulysses.  He  had  even  been  as  far  as 
Louisville — a  wonderful  steamboat  ride  from  Cincin 
nati.  He  began  to  study  geography,  at  least,  with  some 
show  of  interest.  He  was  naturally  quick  at  figures 
and  mastered  the  rudiments  of  mathematics  with  con 
summate  ease.  He  believed  even  then  in  law  and  order 
as  his  Maysville  teacher,  Mr.  Richardson,  tells  of  two 
measures  that  were  introduced  in  formal  meeting  of 
the  school  debating  society  by  Ulysses  Grant.  They 
were  as  follows: 

"Resolved,  That  it  be  considered  out  of  order  for  any 
member  to  speak  on  the  opposite  side  to  that  to  which  he 
belongs. 

"Resolved,  That  any  member  who  leaves  his  seat  during 
debate  shall  be  fined  not  less  than  six  and  a  quarter  cents." 

But  while  it  was  admitted  that  Ulysses  could  break, 
train,  ride  and  drive  horses  to  the  admiration  of  every 
body,  there  was  one  thing  he  would  not  and  could  not 
do,  and  that  was  strive  to  persuade  a  man  to  sell  a  horse 
for  less  than  the  horse's  worth.  In  the  eyes  of  Jesse, 
the  money-maker,  this  offset  his  virtues,  and  the  father 
never  ceased  to  look  upon  the  son  as,  from  a  purely 
business  point  of  view,  rather  a  hopeless  proposition. 
There  was  once  a  colt  Ulysses  longed  to  own  and  had 

28 


BOYHOOD  AND  MOTHER 

not  money  to  buy.  This  was  when  the  boy  was  less  than 
ten.  The  owner  valued  it  at  twenty-five  dollars.  The 
boy  believed  him  fully  worth  it.  The  father  long  held 
out  for  twenty,  but  at  last  gave  over  the  needed  twenty- 
five  with  the  parting  injunction:  "Offer  him  twenty 
dollars.  If  he  won't  take  that,  then  make  it  twenty-two 
fifty,  and  if  that  won't  do  then  let  him  have  the  twenty- 
five."  Rejoicefully  the  youngster  galloped  away  and 
literally  did  he  obey  his  instructions.  "  I've  come  for 

the  colt,  Mr. ,"  said  he.  "  Father  says  I'm  to  offer 

you  twenty  dollars,  and  if  you  won't  take  that,  make  it 
twenty-two  fifty,  and  if  that  won't  do,  to  give  the  whole 
twenty-five  dollars."  And,  as  the  general  whimsically 
says  in  his  Memoirs,  "  It  wouldn't  take  a  Connecticut 
man  to  guess  the  price  immediately  agreed  upon." 

But  Ulysses  got  that  colt  and  trained  and  rode  him 
several  years,  and  sold  him  for  twenty  dollars  when  no 
longer  suited  to  his  needs.  Yet  the  Georgetown  boys, 
envious  of  his  horsemanship  and  eagerly  and  properly 
disdainful  of  his  business  methods,  guyed  him  without 
mercy  over  that  story,  and  so  did  his  father.  The  boy 
might  have  an  eye  for  a  horse,  was  the  verdict  of  Brown 
County,  but  he  had  no  head  for  business. 

And  Brown  County  was  prophetic.  Looking  far 
into  the  future  was  it  possible  that  Georgetown  fore 
saw  the  failure  that  was,  in  Wall  Street,  the  sensation 
of  the  day — the  peril  of  an  honored  name,  the  forfeit 
of  a  fortune,  which  in  the  autumn  of  his  age  well-nigh 
broke  the  stout  heart  of  Ulysses  Grant? 

It  was  soon  after  this  episode  in  his  boy  life  that 
Ulysses  became  a  sufferer  from  chills  and  fever — the 
scourge  that  for  a  time  had  broken  the  health  and 
checked  the  fortune  of  his  father.  Then  it  was 
that  again  and  yet  again  the  growing  lad  became 
as  a  child  at  his  mother's  knee,  and  thus  it  was  that  even 
in  his  sturdy,  self-reliant  boyhood,  he  was  thrown  so 
much  upon  the  care  and  comforting  that  only  a  mother 

29 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

could  give.  Thus  perhaps  it  came  about  that  just  at 
the  time  when  most  boys  seem  cutting  loose  from  the 
maternal  apronstring,  the  future  hero  of  the  fiercest 
war  of  modern  times,  all  unconscious  of  the  momentous 
change  so  speedily  to  come  into  his  life,  fell  more  and 
more  under  the  sweet  and  soothing  influences  of  that 
mother's  love — influences  that  abode  with  him  for  all 
time. 


CHAPTER  III 
A  SOLDIER  IN  SPITE  OF  HIMSELF 

THE  summer  of  the  seventeenth  year  of  Grant's  life 
had  come.  His  sixteenth  birthday  had  found  him  just 
finishing  the  winter  term  at  a  Maysville  school,  and 
once  again  he  was  busily  engaged  about  the  farm,  when 
his  father  decided  the  hour  at  hand  in  which  to  deter 
mine  the  boy's  future  vocation.  Frankly,  yet  respect 
fully,  the  lad  had  declared  that  if  he  must  learn  and 
labor  at  the  trade  of  a  tanner  he  would  do  so  only 
until  twenty-one.  Then  he  would  shift  for  himself. 
Already  the  "best  travelled  boy"  in  Georgetown,  he 
still  longed  to  see  more  of  the  world. 

By  this  time  Jesse  Grant  was  a  man  of  mark  and 
influence  in  the  community.  Possessed  now  of  moder 
ate  means,  he  was  bent  on  providing  his  children 
with  the  best  education  to  be  had,  yet,  true  to  his  busi 
ness  instincts,  sought  to  do  so  at  the  least  cost  to  him 
self.  One  wintry  evening  when  the  son  was  home  from 
the  last  of  the  local  schools  he  ever  attended — a  private 
affair  at  Ripley — the  father  appeared  with  a  long, 
official-looking  envelope  in  hand,  and  very  briefly  an 
nounced  the  appointment  of  Ulysses  to  a  cadetship  at 
the  National  Military  Academy  at  West  Point.  The 
rest  is  best  told  in  Grant's  own  words,  " '  But  I  won't 
go,'  said  I.  '  I  think  you  will,'  said  my  father,  and  I 
thought  so  too  if  he  did,  and  the  matter  was  settled 
then  and  there." 

How  it  all  came  about  is  rather  a  curious  story. 
The  Hon.  Thomas  L.  Hamer  then  represented  that 
congressional  district,  and  was  entitled  to  name  the  lad 
who  should  fill  the  vacancy  at  West  Point  created  by 
the  recent  failure  of  a  Georgetown  boy.  That  failure 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

had  stung  to  the  quick  the  father  of  the  luckless  cadet 
in  question,  and  the  poor  fellow  had  been  sternly  for 
bidden  to  show  his  face  at  home.  Everybody  seems  to 
have  known  it,  and  Ulysses  had  been  thinking  much 
of  the  sorrows  of  his  former  playmate,  and  how  strange 
it  was  that  one  so  capable  in  his  school  work  at  home 
should  have  made  so  complete  a  failure  of  it  elsewhere. 
Ulysses  did  not  know  that  more  than  half  the  "can 
didates  "  who  then  entered  West  Point  were  unable  to 
meet  the  requirements  or  stand  the  strain  of  the  four 
long  years  of  incessant  study  and  discipline,  and  sooner 
or  later  fell  by  the  wayside. 

But  that  the  appointment  should  come  from  Mr. 
Hamer  was  a  surprise  to  all  Brown  County.  Hamer 
and  Jesse  Grant  had  differed  widely  on  some  political 
matters,  and  Jesse,  as  was  ever  his  wont,  had  been 
venting  his  views  in  the  public  press  and  saying  things 
as  to  Mr.  Hamer's  sagacity  and  statesmanship  that 
had  greatly  angered  Mr.  Hamer  at  the  time,  and  the 
two  men  met  as  strangers  when  they  met  at  all. 

So  Grant  had  written  to  a  senatorial  friend — a  man 
who  liked  the  outspoken  tanner,  and  whom  Hamer 
liked  and  was  glad  to  oblige.  The  senator  wrote  to 
Hamer  and,  time  being  short  and  mail  communication 
slow,  other  business  and  no  other  candidates  pressing, 
it  resulted  that  Mr.  Hamer  at  once  sent  to  the  Secretary 
of  War  what  he  believed  to  be  the  correct  name  of  the 
son  of  his  truculent  fellow  citizen.  The  Hiram  part  of 
it  he  had  never  heard.  The  Ulysses  part  of  it  was  on 
many  a  tongue  when  last  the  congressman  was  at  home, 
and  all  Brown  and  Claremont  Counties  knew  that  the 
boy's  mother  was  that  gentle  daughter  of  John  Simp 
son.  The  War  Department  asked  no  questions,  but 
promptly  filled  the  customary  blank  which  formally 
notified  one  Ulysses  Simpson  Grant,  of  Georgetown, 
Brown  County,  Ohio,  that  the  President  had  been 
pleased  to  designate  him  conditionally  as  a  cadet  at 

32 


A  SOLDIER  IN  SPITE    OF  HIMSELF 

the  U.  S.  Military  Academy,  where  he  would  be 
pleased  to  report  himself  to  the  superintendent  thereof 
on  or  about  the  ist  of  June  for  further  examination. 
Then  followed  some  printed  instructions  as  to  the  phys 
ical  and  mental  qualifications — the  latter  then  little 
more  than  the  "  reading,  writing  and  'rithmetic "  he 
had  been  learning  at  odd  intervals  for  several  years. 
Before  Ulysses  was  a  day  older  he  found  himself 
booked,  as  it  were,  for  a  life  career  which  was  just 
about  the  last  he  would  ever  have  chosen  and  for  which 
he  deemed  himself  in  the  least  degree  fitted. 

And  yet  it  so  happened  that  within  ten  years  both 
the  congressman  and  the  cadet  of  his  nomination  were 
destined  to  meet  as  fellow  soldiers  in  the  field  of  arms, 
and  to  record  each  of  the  other  high  estimate  of  ability, 
energy  and  value.  The  one  as  a  field  officer  of  volun 
teers,  the  other  as  a  staff  officer  of  regulars,  met  and 
joined  hands  in  front  of  Monterey.  It  is  pleasant,  too, 
to  record  that  when  Mr.  Hamer  got  home  from  Wash 
ington  in  the  summer  of  '39  his  former  critic  and 
censor,  Mr.  Jesse  Grant,  lost  no  time  in  journeying  to 
find  him,  and  to  thank  him  heartily  for  the  appoint 
ment  given  his  boy,  and  these  two  men  of  mark  thus 
buried  their  differences  and  shook  hands  over  the 
clouded  past.  Henceforth  they  had  an  interest  in 
common. 

But  the  object  of  that  interest  meanwhile  had  been 
by  no  means  happy.  Little  as  he  desired  to  go  to  West 
Point,  he  less  desired  to  return  from  there  except 
victorious,  with  diploma  and  commission  to  crown  his 
efforts,  and  now  Ulysses  was  worrying  over  the  pos 
sibility  of  failure.  If  some  convulsion  of  nature  had 
toppled  the  entire  Academy  into  the  Hudson  that  spring 
of  '39  he  could  have  read  the  news  with  rejoicing. 
Indeed  he  himself  records  that,  soon  after  his  entrance 
upon  duty,  he  watched  with  actual  hope  the  progress 
of  the  move  in  congress  to  abolish  West  Point.  If 
3  33 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Congress  killed  the  Academy,  he  could  then  return 
blameless  and  scot  free  to  resume  the  farm  life  and  the 
horse  training  he  delighted  in. 

That  spring  of  '39  he  rode  in  to  Cincinnati  in  quest 
of  an  algebra,  thinking  to  learn  a  little  of  the  first  year's 
mathematical  course.  Arithmetic  he  knew  by  heart, 
but  this  strange  new  work,  with  its  mystic  symbols, 
proved,  as  he  says,  all  Greek  to  him,  and  there  was  no 
one  in  Georgetown  who  could  then  explain  its  mysteries. 
It  only  served  to  add  to  his  apprehensions. 

The  time  soon  came  when  he  must  set  forth  on 
what  was  then  a  journey  of  a  week  or  more.  There 
was  between  him  and  that  devoted  mother  much  plan 
ning  and  preparation  over  the  modest  stock  of  cloth 
ing  to  be  taken,  and  who  knows  what  confidences,  what 
admonition  on  the  one  side  and  promise  on  the  other, 
passed  between  these  two,  who,  loving  each  other  so 
very  much,  spoke  of  it  so  very  little.  One  letter  writ 
ten  from  West  Point  within  a  few  months  of  his  en 
trance — one  probably  of  many,  for  others  are  referred 
to — reveals  unerringly  the  depth  of  the  reverence  in 
which  he  held  his  mother.  Let  that  speak  for  itself. 

But  the  note  of  preparation  was  not  without  its 
humorous  or  whimsical  side.  When  the  old-fashioned 
hair  trunk,  lettered  with  brass-headed  nails,  was  brought 
forth,  and  on  either  end  was  disclosed  the  legend 
H.  U.  G.,  the  wise  Ulysses  promptly  rebelled.  Mindful 
of  the  deviling  to  which  the  village  boys  had  subjected 
him  over  the  colt  purchase,  and  foreseeing  the  fun  his 
future  comrades  would  have  over  that  alphabetical  com 
bination,  he  insisted  on  another  trunk  and  a  different 
legend.  The  trunk  which  entered  West  Point  with 
"'New  Cadet"  Ulysses  Simpson  Grant  was  marked 
U.  H.  G.,  thus  leading  to  further  complications. 

The  Grants  were  given  to  little  show  of  emotion  at 
any  time.  The  parting  with  mother  was  not  for  other 
eyes.  There  were  Georgetown  girls  and  boys  to  "  see 

34 


A  SOLDIER  IN  SPITE  OF  HIMSELF 

him  off,"  even  after  the  cheery  farewell  to  father  and 
the  sisters  at  the  front  gate.  The  girls  of  Georgetown 
had  ever  been  his  friends,  because  no  one  of  their  num 
ber  had  ever  known  him  to  be  guilty  of  a  rude  act  or 
word,  and  now  that  he  was  going  it  began  to  be  further 
remarked  amongst  the  town  folk,  old  and  young,  that 
that  boy  had  never  been  guilty  of  a  mean  act  or  an  un 
truthful  word.  There  was  something  to  him,  after  all, 
besides  a  gift  for  training  and  trading  horses.  It  was 
recalled  that  when  a  wandering  phrenologist  visited  the 
village  six  years  earlier,  the  elder  Grant  had  insisted 
on  the  boy's  bumps  being  interpreted,  and  what  that 
phrenologist  told  Jesse — a  believer  in  the  new  cult — 
astonished  and  delighted  the  elder  as  much  as  it  dis 
mayed  the  boy.  "  Whatever  you  do,  don't  tell  it," 
Ulysses  had  begged,  when  he  saw  how  seriously  his 
father  took  it,  but  all  in  vain.  Somehow  it  leaked  out 
that  those  bumps  indicated  that  the  first-born  son  of 
Jesse  should  one  day  be  President  of  the  United  States, 
and  the  fun  Georgetown  had  at  the  expense  of  the 
Grants  lasted  many  a  year.  Very  possibly  that  gifted 
practitioner  had  prophesied  the  same  thing  of  other 
boys  at  several  other  "  stands "  along  his  route ;  in 
these  cases,  however,  fond  parents  found  no  subsequent 
reason  for  mentioning  the  fact. 

But  Jesse  Grant  was  unprepared  for  the  first  indi 
cations  of  a  will  of  his  own  on  part  of  the  son.  It 
seems  that  our  Ulysses  was  bent  on  making  the  most  of 
his  first  wanderings  away  from  the  home  State.  It  was 
a  three-days'  run  by  river  boat  to  Pittsburgh.  It  was 
a  long,  slow  ride  thence  by  canal  packet  to  the  base  of 
the  Alleghenies,  and  over  their  summits  by  wagon  or 
stage.  It  was  another  long,  slow  ride  down  the  eastern 
slopes  and  the  winding  Juniata.  Then  at  Harrisburg, 
the  State  capital,  the  Buckeye  boy  bought  his  ticket  to 
Philadelphia  by  the  first  railway  train  he  had  yet  seen, 
and  nearly  a  day  was  spent  in  trundling  over  the  twist- 

35 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

ing  road  of  iron  at  the  astonishing  speed  of  twelve  or 
even  fifteen  miles  an  hour.  Then  Ulysses  devoted  an 
entire  week  to  sight-seeing  in  Philadelphia.  He  had 
money  of  his  own,  his  earnings  and  savings,  and  there 
were  kinsfolk  of  the  clan  to  visit.  There  was,  more 
over,  abundant  time,  yet  all  this  independence  startled 
Jesse,  the  father,  and  brought  from  his  ever  ready  pen 
a  letter  of  rebuke,  which,  like  many  another  letter  re 
ceived  in  after  years,  was  read  without  resentment  and 
pocketed  without  remark,  left  in  fact  to  answer  itself 
in  course  of  time,  as  most  letters  will. 

And  now,  oddly  enough,  while  the  home  folk  were 
fretting  not  a  little  at  the  deliberation  with  which 
Ulysses  moved  on  to  his  destination,  there  was  some 
thing  of  a  show  of  impatience  at  the  other  end  of  the 
line — something  that  would  have  surprised  no  one  more 
than  Ulysses  himself.  West  Point  reception  of  all  new 
comers  had  sometimes  exaggerated  that  of  the  colleges 
of  all  Christendom.  In  one  and  all  the  neophyte  has 
had  to  learn  that  an  immensity  of  distance  lies  between 
him  and  the  honors  and  dignity  of  the  upper  classman. 
On  this  point  there  are  none  so  insistent  as  the  so- 
called  sophomores  in  college  or  "  yearlings "  at  the 
national  schools.  Having  only  just  emerged  from  the 
meekness  of  their  own  year  of  probation,  they  turn 
with  eager  delight  upon  the  "  f  reshies  "  of  the  new 
class,  and  in  the  vernacular  of  the  campus  "  take  it 
out "  of  their  successors. 

West  Point  was  and  is  no  exception  to  the  rule.  It 
holds  good  everywhere  in  all  trades  and  professions. 
Soldiers,  sailors,  students,  school  boys,  miners,  wood 
men,  "  gangsters  "  generally,  wherever  the  male  animal 
is  employed  or  engaged,  sometimes  even  where  two  or 
three  are  gathered  together  in  Sunday-school  or  theo 
logical  seminary,  the  newcomer  is  the  butt  of  the  jokes 
or  pranks,  more  or  less  malicious,  of  the  older  "  hands." 
It  is  even  whispered  that  there  are  colleges  where  co- 

36 


A  SOLDIER  IN  SPITE  OF  HIMSELF 

education  is  unknown,  and  only  the  softer  sex  admitted, 
where  "  hazing  "  is  carried  on  as  merrily  or  maliciously 
as  ever  it  was  at  the  Point.  In  Grant's  day  the  practice 
had  not  risen  to  the  proportions  attained  when  his  own 
first-born  "  reported,"  and  in  turn,  with  cheery  and 
uncomplaining  equanimity,  took  his  share  and  more 
of  the  "  levelling  "  process  devised  by  his  elders  in  the 
craft.  When  still  again,  in  the  third  generation,  the 
line  of  U.  S.  Grant  was  enrolled  in  the  famous  gray 
battalion,  there  were  disciplinarian  methods  and  re 
finements  of  torment  in  practice  never  dreamed  of  in 
the  days  of  Grant,  the  grandfather,  the  first  Ulysses, 
for  whose  coming  in  June,  '39,  a  swarm  of  mirthful 
spirits  were  eagerly  watching. 

It  was  all  due  to  those  magic  initials  U.  S.  In  his 
own  Memoirs  General  Tecumseh  Sherman — he  who 
was  destined  a  quarter  century  later  to  be  the  strong 
right  arm,  and  stanchest,  sturdiest  friend  Grant  found 
in  all  the  army — records  that  when  the  list  of  new  cadets 
was  posted  along  in  the  springtime,  as  was  ever  the 
custom,  and  the  youngsters  swarmed  about  the  bulletin 
board  to  study  the  names  and  speculate  as  to  the  person 
ality  of  the  expected  class,  the  liveliest  comment  was 
aroused  by  the  name  of  the  representative  of  the  Fifth 
Congressional  District  of  Ohio.  It  is  safe  to  say  that 
when  a  few  weeks  later  the  neophytes  began  to  arrive, 
and  shyly,  sullenly  or  stoically,  as  temperaments  de 
termined,  submitted  to  the  ordeal  of  initiation,  the 
centre  of  interest  for  several  days  was  that  rather 
bucolical-looking  young  fellow  from  the  Buckeye  State. 
Then  it  as  surely  settled  elsewhere.  From  the  moment 
of  his  arrival  Grant  was  so  hopelessly  good  natured,  so 
cheery  and  serene,  so  unruffled  even  by  taunt,  sneer 
or  sarcasm,  that  the  few  malignant  spirits  sought  other 
victims,  while  the  main  body,  the  manly  and  self- 
respecting  class  that  have  ever  made  up  the  great  ma 
jority  of  the  Corps  of  Cadets,  soon  took  him  into  fellow- 

37 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

ship  as  one  of  the  steady  goers  of  the  battalion,  and  left 
him  to  work  out  his  own  destiny  in  the  most  utterly 
democratic  institution  on  the  face  of  the  globe.  In 
this  little  community,  no  matter  what  may  be  the  con 
ditions  as  to  birth,  breeding,  family  connections  or 
worldly  goods,  all  who  enter  leave  such  behind,  and  at 
the  outset  agree  to  be  bound  by  the  same  rigid  rules 
as  to  dress,  diet,  deportment  and  duty,  to  eat,  drink, 
sleep,  study,  drill  and  do  as  prescribed  in  the  regulations. 
Thus  starting  on  precisely  the  same  plane,  each  for 
himself,  as  natural  or  acquired  advantages,  coupled 
with  industry  and  energy,  may  best  enable  him.  the 
cadet  determines  his  own  future  standing  in  the  records 
of  the  Academy. 

And  so  started  and  so  for  four  long  years  steadily  and 
serenely  plodded  the  Ohio  lad  known  to  his  comrades 
of  the  Corps  as  Sam  Grant.  Only  in  one  way  was  he 
destined  to  become  conspicuous  in  the  Academy.  Only 
to  one  earthly  being  did  he  communicate  his  hopes, 
fears  or  most  intimate  impressions.  Removed  by  long 
miles  from  the  sweet  influences  that  had  surrounded 
and  guarded  his  boyhood,  entered  against  his  will  upon 
a  career  distasteful  to  him,  circumscribed  by  conditions 
that  were  often  repugnant,  and  governed  by  a  routine 
he  considered  harsh  at  most  times  and  needless  in  most 
cases,  he  passed  through  plebe  camp  in  silent  submis 
sion,  and  settled  down  to  his  first  year's  studies  in  the 
bare  old  barracks,  with  neither  hope  of  nor  desire  for 
reward  in  the  profession  prescribed  for  him;  with 
neither  enthusiasm  nor  even  respect  for  the  soldier  part 
of  his  work ;  with  nothing  but  a  sense  of  duty  and  a 
never-surrender  spirit  to  direct  his  efforts.  To  this 
was  added  the  filial  obedience  he  owed  his  father  and 
the  devotion  with  which  he  regarded  his  mother,  for 
here  is  what  in  1839  he  wrote  to  her: 

"I   seem  alone  in  the  world  without  ray  mother    .    .    . 
You  cannot  tell  how  much  I  miss  you.     I  was  so  often  alone 

38 


A  SOLDIER  IN  SPITE  OF  HIMSELF 

with  you  and  you  so  frequently  spoke  to  me  in  private  that 
the  solitude  of  my  situation  here  at  the  Academy  among  my 
silent  books  and  in  my  lonely  room  is  all  the  more  striking. 
It  reminds  me  all  the  more  forcibly  of  home,  and  most  of  all, 
dear  mother,  of  you.  Your  kindly  instructions  and  ad 
monitions  are  ever  present  with  me.  How  often  do  I  think 
of  them  and  how  well  they  strengthen  me  in  every  good  word 
or  work." 


CHAPTER  IV 
CADET  LIFE  AND   COMRADES 

IN  those  days  the  age  limit  for  admission  to  the 
Academy  was  from  sixteen  to  twenty,  and  of  the  num 
ber  sent  thither  for  preliminary  examination  in  June, 
'39»  Just  seventy-six  were  duly  enrolled  as  new  cadets. 
Thirteen  of  their  number  were  named  by  the  President 
himself,  sons  of  prominent  officials  or  personal  or 
political  friends.  A  dozen  hailed  from  New  York ; 
nearly  as  many  from  Pennsylvania;  three  from  Vir 
ginia  ;  four  only  from  Ohio ;  the  others  "  scattering." 
Of  these  seventy-six  only  about  one-half  were  destined 
to  answer  to  the  final  roll-call  of  the  class  when  sum 
moned  four  years  later  to  receive  the  prized  diploma. 

Nor  was  it  a  class  remarkable  either  for  scholarship 
or  soldiership.  No  one  of  their  number  was  graduated 
directly  into  the  most  scientific  Corps  of  the  Army,  the 
Engineers.  William  B.  Franklin,  who  eventually 
ended  at  the  head  in  general  standing,  was  gazetted  to 
the  "  Topogs  " — a  secondary  branch  of  the  Engineers, 
which  many  years  later  was  merged  with  that  Corps 
by  act  of  Congress.  The  next  man,  George  Deshon,  of 
Connecticut,  was  assigned  to  the  Ordnance,  but  ere  long 
quit  the  army  for  the  priesthood,  and  lived  and  died 
in  holy  orders.  For  a  time  he  and  Grant  were  room 
mates,  they  were  ever  friends,  the  one  already  dream 
ing  of  the  mitre  and  vestments  of  the  Church  of  Rome, 
the  other  an  unobtrusive  follower  of  his  mother's  creed 
— that  of  the  most  earnest  Methodism.  Next  in  rank 
came  Brereton  and  Grelaud,  assigned  respectively  to 
the  Ordnance  and  the  Artillery.  William  F.  Raynolds, 
hailing  like  Grant  from  Ohio,  was  graduated  fifth  and 
was  at  first  assigned  to  the  Infantry  arm,  but  was  able 

40 


CADET  LIFE  AND  COMRADES 

as  early  as  the  2Oth  of  July  to  effect  a  transfer  to  the 
Topographical  Corps.  Sixth  in  order  of  graduation 
and  assigned  to  the  Artillery,  was  Quimby  of  New 
Jersey — the  finest  mathematician  of  the  class.  Excel 
lence  in  mathematics  was  not  infrequently  counter 
balanced  by  inaptitude  in  languages.  Excellence  in 
languages  is  rarely  accompanied  by  like  ability  in 
"  math."  Yet  Quimby  was  to  become  in  Grant's  eyes 
the  most  enviable  man  of  all  their  number  when,  in 
1852,  he  resigned  from  the  army  to  take  a  profes 
sorship  of  mathematics.  Of  the  members  of  this  class 
of  1843,  Franklin,  Peck,  J.  J.  Reynolds,  Augur,  C.  S. 
Hamilton  and  Fred  Steele  rose  with  Grant  to  the  grade 
of  major-general  in  the  command  of  volunteers  during 
the  great  war  of  the  nation.  Ingalls  became  famous  as 
chief  quartermaster  of  the  armies  in  Virginia,  Clarke  as 
a  chief  commissary,  Reynolds  and  Hardie  in  the  staff, 
and  Potter,  Dent  and  Judah  won  their  stars  as 
brigadiers. 

Two  of  their  brave  young  band,  Chadbourne  and 
Hazlitt,  met  their  soldier  fate  when  mere  boys,  killed 
in  the  earliest  battles  of  the  Mexican  War,  while 
George  Stevens,  of  the  Dragoons,  after  valiant  deeds 
at  Palo  Alto  and  Resaca,  was  drowned  in  attempting 
the  passage  of  the  Rio  Grande.  Two,  Northern  born, 
for  some  strange  reason  forgot  their  duty  and  their 
flag,  and  tendered  their  swords  in  '61  to  the  States 
arrayed  against  the  Union.  Two  fell  by  the  wayside 
and  left  the  service  by  sentence  of  court-martial.  To 
one  and  to  one  alone  it  was  vouchsafed,  after  most  gal 
lant  and  conspicuous  services  in  battle  while  only  a 
beardless  subaltern,  after  trials,  vicissitudes  and  humilia 
tions  that  might  well  have  crushed  a  stouter  heart,  to 
take  up  arms  against  a  sea  of  troubles,  to  triumph  over 
every  adverse  influence,  to  rise  to  the  command  in 
chief  of  the  greatest  army  of  modern  times,  and  then, 
acclaimed  by  the  entire  nation,  to  the  highest  honors 

41 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

and  rewards  ever  accorded  by  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  and  all  this  through  the  profession  of  all  others 
he  would  never  have  willingly  chosen — the  cheery, 
modest,  but  most  determined  lad,  Mr.  Hamer's  ap 
pointee  from  Georgetown,  Ohio.  West  Point  indeed 
had  verified  the  confident  prediction  of  Jesse  Grant.  It 
had  developed  the  latent  something  that  the  father  de 
clared  was  slumbering  in  the  son. 

But  life  at  the  Military  Academy  in  the  old  days  had 
little  of  the  life  one  now  can  see  there  any  sunshiny  day. 
Railways  and  steam  ferries  were  only  just  beginning  to 
be  heard  of  in  the  beautiful  Highlands  of  the  Hudson. 
Perched  on  its  rocky  promontory,  compassed  about  by 
its  mighty  barriers  of  wooded  heights,  swept  by  the 
swift  tides  of  the  noble  river,  the  little  military  bailiwick 
in  the  heart  of  the  Empire  State  was  as  isolated  as 
though  it  had  been  walled  in  and  the  public  barred  out. 
Visitors  to  the  Academy,  who  came  often  in  the  sum 
mer  time,  were  landed  at  the  old  north  dock  from  the 
dayboat  plying  'twixt  New  York  and  the  bustling  river 
towns. 

Even  in  the  forties  it  took  the  better  part  of  a  long 
summer  day  to  reach  the  Academy  from  any  one  of 
the  river  towns  above  and  below,  and  as  for  the  two 
hundred  and  fifty  young  soldiers  in  cadet  gray,  selected 
from  all  over  the  Union  and  secluded  there  to  be  trained 
for  its  military  service,  only  once  in  two  years,  except 
in  rare  individual  cases,  did  they  set  foot  beyond  its 
borders.  They  took  no  part  in  presidential  inaugurations 
(the  first  time  they  ever  appeared  at  Washington  was 
when  one  of  their  number  who  entered  in  '39,  hoping 
to  learn  enough  to  become  a  teacher  of  mathematics, 
was  being  escorted  to  the  capitol  to  take  oath  as  Chief 
Magistrate  of  the  Union  he  had  been  largely  instru 
mental  in  saving).  They  had  no  annual  outing  for  the 
great  game  on  Franklin  Field,  for  Annapolis  was  only 
just  evolving  from  a  dream  of  George  Bancroft.  They 

42 


CADET  LIFE  AND  COMRADES 

had  no  base-ball,  foot-ball,  basket-ball  teams,  no  gym 
nasium  worth  the  name.  They  had  had  some  rings  and 
bars  or  wooden  "  horses  "  in  the  ground  floor  of  the 
old  Academic  building,  but  just  the  year  before  Grant 
and  his  fellows  were  started  on  their  slow  race,  these 
impedimenta  were  dragged  out,  the  floor  was  carpeted 
with  tan  bark,  and  presently  equine  and  ammoniac 
aromas  ascended  to  the  recitation  rooms  above.  Riding 
at  last  had  been  added  to  the  curriculum.  A  sergeant 
of  dragoons  and  half  a  dozen  troopers  had  been  brought 
over  from  the  cavalry  station  at  Carlisle  Barracks, 
Pennsylvania,  together  with  a  small  collection  of  quad 
rupeds — animals  whose  pedigree  and  proficiency  as 
saddlers,  however,  had  not  been  subject  to  examina 
tion.  A  sorrier  lot  of  riding-school  mounts  could  hardly 
be  found  on  the  face  of  the  globe,  but  they  were  merrily 
welcomed.  Bad  as  they  looked  and  were,  they  supplied 
a  long- felt  want  and  about  the  only  lawful  diversion 
known  to  the  Corps  of  Cadets. 

Just  how  young  men  could  live  through  the  dull, 
dreary  monotony  of  the  five  wintry  months  of  each  of 
those  academic  years  it  is  difficult  now  to  see.  Aroused 
at  daybreak  by  the  thunder  of  the  reveille  drums, 
hustled  out  to  roll-call,  then  back  to  their  bare  and 
cheerless  rooms,  to  sweep  out  for  inspection  and  sit 
shivering  through  an  enforced  study  period  of  an  hour 
or  two  before  breakfast,  marched  to  meals  three  times  a 
day  (about  the  only  out-of-door  exercise  they  had  from 
October  to  April),  penned  up  in  quarters  when  not  at 
recitation  or  drawing,  permitted  no  healthful  sport 
of  any  kind  except  on  a  Saturday  afternoon,  and  then 
provided  with  the  means  for  none,  the  marvel  is  that 
more  numerously  they  did  not  break  down  in  health 
or  break  over  the  rules.  Grant  says  he  took  to  tobacco 
principally  because  it  was  forbidden.  The  lessons  were 
long  and  hard,  but  study  hours  were  longer  and  if  any 
thing  harder,  for  nothing  but  study  was  prescribed. 

43 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

The  forcing  house  system,  according  to  the  theory  of 
the  day,  would  achieve  the  best  results,  and  so  far  as 
rule  and  regulation  could  make  it,  cadet  life,  nearly 
nine  months  of  each  year,  was  well  high  monastic. 

As  a  natural  result  the  lads  overleaped  at  times  the 
barriers  and  set  forth  in  search  of  adventure.  These 
were  the  halcyon  days  of  dear  old  Benny  Havens, 
whose  bones  are  now  mouldering  in  the  hillside  grave 
yard  a  little  below  "the  Falls,"  but  whose  soul  goes 
marching  on  through  song,  story  and  tradition,  and 
whose  fame  will  live  long  as  that  of  the  brainiest  of 
many  of  his  patrons.  To  skip  to  Benny's  of  a  cold 
December  night,  when  the  officer  in  charge  had  "  doused 
his  glim,"  and  the  stars  were  gleaming  on  the  glisten 
ing  breastplate  of  the  Hudson,  was  a  matter  of  but 
twenty  minutes.  Skates  in  hand,  the  daring  fellows 
would  tiptoe  out  of  barracks,  scramble  down  the  cliff 
at  Kosciuszko's  Garden,  don  their  steels  on  the  icy 
flats  beneath,  and  then  go  skimming  away  down  stream 
to  where,  just  below  the  foaming  little  cataract,  a  big, 
roomy,  stout-built,  wooden-shuttered,  two-story  house 
stood  on  a  rocky  ledge  at  the  water's  brink — all  dark 
ness  without,  all  gleam  and  glow,  warmth  and  welcome 
within.  Oh,  what  nights  of  song  and  wassail,  of  cheer 
and  laughter,  of  feast  and  fun,  enlivened  the  dull,  dead 
monotony  of  those  dark  and  dreary  months!  What 
hours  of  mirth  and  merriment  were  these  wrung  from 
the  bleak  chronicles  of  barrack  life !  Oh,  that  with  all  the 
reminiscences  ever  written — Grant,  Sherman,  Sheridan, 
Scofield,  Keyes,  Howard,  Hamilton,  Strong,  Boynton, 
and  fondest  of  them  all,  by  Morris  Schaff,  in  whom 
"  the  Spirit  of  old  West  Point "  lives  sweet  and  incar 
nate — there  might  have  been  those  of  him  we  hailed 
long  years  as  patron  saint — genial,  fatherly,  blessed  and 
benevolent  old  Benny  Havens !  His  stories  could  have 
outranked  them  all  as  his  song  runs  on  forever. 

But  before   the  academic  year  of   study   had   its 
44 


CADET  LIFE  AND  COMRADES 

opening  in  September,  there  were  some  ten  weeks  of 
strictly  soldier  work  in  camp,  to  the  newcomers  the 
harshest  and  sternest  of  their  career.  Those  were  the 
weeks  in  which  the  raw,  untutored  lads  from  field,  farm 
and  village,  had  to  be  transformed  as  speedily  as  pos 
sible  into  the  smartest,  snappiest,  most  precise  of 
soldiers,  spick  and  span  in  dress,  spotless  in  arms  and 
equipment.  These  were  the  days  of  the  "  ramrod " 
tactics  of  Winfield  Scott — the  starch  and  stock  and 
buckram  days  of  the  army.  "  Old  Fuss  and  Feathers  " 
his  detractors  called  him,  but  with  all  his  pomps  and 
vanities  a  splendid  soldier  was  Scott,  a  model  either 
on  the  drill  ground  or  in  deadly  battle.  Ten  years  had 
rolled  away  since  the  relief  of  Major  Worth  as  com 
mandant,  the  idol  of  the  Corps  of  Cadets,  the  ideal 
drill-master  of  the  army,  but  the  methods  and  manner 
isms  of  that  most  soldierly  of  instructors  were  still  fol 
lowed,  the  snap  and  style  of  his  drill  (pronounced  by 
Prof.  Church,  who  had  seen  every  commandant  from 
Worth  in  1822,  to  good  old  "  Beau  "  Neill  in  1878,  "  the 
most  electric  of  them  all")  still  lived  in  the  cadet  bat 
talion,  and  our  farm-bred  Ulysses  had  the  time  of  his 
life  trying  to  "  fall  in  "  with  it.  There  was  probably 
no  man  in  his  class  to  whom  it  came  harder. 

Phlegmatic  in  temperament  and  long  given  to  ease 
and  deliberation  in  all  his  movements  at  home,  this 
springing  to  attention  at  the  tap  of  the  drum,  this 
snapping  together  of  the  heels  at  the  sound  of  a 
sergeant's  voice,  this  sudden  freezing  to  a  rigid  pose 
without  the  move  of  a  muscle,  except  at  the  word  of 
command,  was  something  almost  beyond  him.  It  seemed 
utterly  unnatural,  if  not  utterly  repugnant.  Ac 
customed  to  swinging  along  the  winding  banks  of  the 
White  Oak,  or  the  cow  paths  of  the  pasture  lot,  this 
moving  only  at  a  measured  pace  of  twenty-eight  inches, 
and  one  hundred  and  ten  to  the  minute,  and  all  in  strict 
unison  with  the  step  of  the  guide  on  the  marching  flank 

45 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

or  at  the  head  of  column,  came  ten  times  harder  than 
ever  did  the  pages  of  "  analytical "  or  the  calculus. 
Grant  had  no  sense  of  rhythm.  He  had  no  joy  in  martial 
music.  The  thrill  and  inspiration  of  the  drum  and 
fife,  or  the  beautiful  harmonies  of  the  old  Academy 
band,  then  a  famous  organization,  were  utterly  lost  on 
Ulysses  Grant.  In  all  that  class  of  1843,  it  may  well 
be  doubted  if  there  lived  one  solitary  soul  who  found 
there  less  to  like  or  more  to  shrink  from  than  this 
seventeen-year-old  lad  who,  thanks  to  the  opportunities 
and  to  the  training  there  given  them,  was  in  less  than  a 
quarter  of  a  century  to  be  hailed  as  the  foremost  soldier 
of  more  than  two  millions  of  men  in  the  Union  blue. 

All  the  same  he  had  silently  donned  the  queer  little 
bob-tailed,  bell-buttoned  "  coatee "  of  the  fashion  of 
1812,  the  skin-tight  trousers  of  white  drilling,  the 
"  uniform  "  shoes  of  the  pattern  worn  by  the  rank  and 
file  of  the  army,  but  luckily  made  to  measure.  It  wasn't 
hard  to  button  that  gray  straight  jacket  about  his 
slender  waist — he  was  one  of  the  slimmest  of  the  Corps 
— but  the  high  black  stock  at  the  throat  was  a  nuisance, 
and  the  little  turn-over  white  collar,  pinned  to  the  inner 
side  of  that  rigid  necklet  of  gray,  a  source  of  endless 
bother  and  demerit.  A  crease,  a  wrinkle  or  a  blotch 
would  bring  the  heartless  report  of  "  Grant — collar 
soiled  at  morning  parade/'  and  reports  of  this  char 
acter,  it  must  be  owned,  rained  thick  and  fast  upon 
his  record.  "  Belts  twisted,"  "  Gloves  torn,"  "  Shoes- 
not  polished,"  "  Brasses  tarnished/'  "  Not  keeping 
dressed  marching  to  dinner"  (which  did  not  imply  that 
he  was  losing  some  of  his  apparel :  It  was  simply  the 
West  Point  way  of  saying  that  for  a  second  or  two  he 
was  out  of  line),  and  above  all,  "Losing  step"  were 
"  skins  "  that  are  samples  of  those  which  even  to  the 
last  year  of  the  four  kept  the  future  head  of  the  nation 
far,  very  far,  from  the  head  of  his  class. 

And  yet  even  that  cadet  "  plebe "  camp  was  not 
46 


CADET  LIFE  AND  COMRADES 

utterly  unhappy ;  and  yet  the  long  winter  of  work  that 
followed  had  its  hours  of  hope  and  encouragement. 
The  drills  developed  healthy  appetite  that  made  even 
the  dubious  fare  of  the  cadet  mess  hall,  as  in  those  days 
provided,  nutritious  and  welcome.  The  hard  day's 
work,  followed  by  a  swim  in  the  Hudson,  promoted 
sound  sleep  and  digestion.  The  ordeal  of  camp  was 
over  at  last.  The  snowy  tents  were  struck  at  the  tap 
of  the  drum.  The  jaunty  battalion,  with  colors  flying 
and  heads  held  high,  marched  blithely  away  to  winter 
quarters,  and  two  days  thereafter  the  lessons  of  the  long 
academic  course  were  begun. 

Then  it  was  that  Grant  made  a  discovery  which  gave 
him  surprise  and  gratification.  Out  of  place  as  he  had 
felt  in  the  serried  ranks,  striving  awkwardly  at  times 
to  keep  step  with  some  frolicsome  file  leader  who  de 
lighted  in  tripping  him,  he  found  himself  at  ease  and 
almost  at  home  in  the  mathematical  section  room. 

Mention  has  been  made  of  his  purchase  of  an 
algebra  in  the  spring  of  the  year,  and  his  finding  it  all 
Greek.  -Now  in  the  fall  of  '39  he  stepped  into  the 
presence  of  an  instructor  who  made  its  complicated 
pages  luminous  with  meaning.  Now  the  curt,  sharp, 
stinging  comments  of  the  cadet  officers  gave  place  to 
clear  and  kindly  explanation  of  every  doubtful  para 
graph.  Now  he  found  himself  listening  absorbed  to 
the  teachings  of  a  master  who  was  the  monarch  of  his 
art,  and  in  less  than  a  week  that  which  had  seemed 
burdened  with  mystery  unfolded  itself  to  his  receptive 
mind,  under  the  guidance  of  the  clearest  demonstrator 
he  or  West  Point  had  ever  known — the  little  man  with 
the  head  of  an  intellectual  giant  and  the  heart  of  gold — 
Albert  E.  Church,  for  nearly  half  a  century  the  unchal 
lenged  chief  of  the  Department  of  Mathematics. 

And  Church  was  but  one  of  a  little  coterie  of  great 
teachers,  all  of  them  then  young,  vigorous  and  full  of 
enthusiasm  in  their  work.  From  the  thirties  to  the 

47 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

seventies,  forty  long  years,  every  graduate  of  the 
Academy  was  made  and  molded  by  these  men.  They 
more  than  deserve  the  tribute  of  fervent  gratitude  and 
affection  that  many  a  pupil  would  gladly  pen,  did  he 
believe  he  could  do  even  faint  justice  to  the  subject.  It 
was  the  writer's  privilege  to  stand  almost  "  in  the 
presence,"  the  day  on  which  the  general-in-chief  of  all 
the  armies  once  again  appeared  within  the  academic 
halls,  and  with  full  heart  and  eager  hands,  shyly,  almost 
faltering  made  his  reverence  to  the  men  who  it  might 
almost  be  declared  had  made  him.  Beyond  all  ques 
tion  they  had  shaped  and  molded  the  fine  and  flawless 
clay  that  came  to  them  in  Ulysses  Grant. 


CHAPTER  V 
WEST  POINT  AND  ITS   PROFESSORS 

FROM  its  infancy  until  the  summer  of  1866  the  Mili 
tary  Academy  remained  under  the  guidance  of  the 
Corps  of  Engineers.  From  the  days  of  Jonathan 
Williams  to  and  including  the  administration  of  George 
W.  Cullum,  only  officers  of  the  Corps  of  Engineers 
were  its  superintendents,  and  from  1818,  until  July 
3Oth,  1866,  only  the  chief  of  the  Corps  of  Engineers 
served  as  its  inspector.  Joseph  G.  Swift,  its  first  gradu 
ate,  was  its  first  inspector.  Sylvanus  Thayer,  who 
longer  than  any  other  served  as  superintendent,  never 
rose  to  the  head  of  the  Corps,  but  the  graduates  of  his 
quarter  century  administration  would  never  admit  that 
he  had  an  equal.  Joseph  G.  Totten,  its  inspector  from 
the  year  before  Grant's  admission,  1838,  until  the  year 
in  which  Grant  became  general-in-chief,  1864,  never 
served  as  superintendent,  yet  had  studied  the  Academy 
from  "  turret  to  foundation  stone."  Richard  Delafield, 
who  succeeded  him  as  inspector,  had  twice  served  as 
superintendent.  In  January,  1861,  when  most  of  the 
Southern  States  had  severed,  as  they  thought,  the  ties 
that  bound  them  to  the  Union,  and  war  was  imminent, 
it  pleased  Mr.  Secretary  Floyd  to  send  Major  P.  G.  T. 
Beauregard  to  the  Point,  with  orders  to  assume  com 
mand  and  relieve  Colonel  Delafield.  That  closed  the 
career  of  Floyd,  who  was  himself  promptly  relieved  by 
Joseph  Holt,  and  the  obnoxious  order  as  promptly  re 
voked.  Finally,  last  of  the  Engineer  superintendents 
in  the  direct  and  unbroken  line,  there  came  to  the  Point 
in  1864,  one  of  its  most  devoted  and  distinguished 
graduates  in  the  person  of  George  W.  Cullum  of  the 
Class  of  1833.  It  is  only  to  be  regretted  that  the  selec 
tion  had  not  been  made  years  earlier,  and  that  it  could 
4  49 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

not  have  held  years  longer.  No  man  in  or  out  of  the 
Corps  of  Engineers  better  knew  the  Academy,  better 
served  it,  loved  it,  than  did  General  Cullum. 

As  given,  not  in  the  order  of  their  establishment, 
but  in  the  records  of  the  days  whereof  we  write,  the 
Academy  consisted  of  the  Departments  of  Tactics,  of 
Civil  and  Military  Engineering,  of  Natural  and  Ex 
perimental  Philosophy,  of  Mathematics,  of  Drawing, 
of  Chemistry  and  Mineralogy,  of  Ordnance  and  Gun 
nery,  of  Geography,  History  and  Ethics,  and  finally  of 
French.  The  Department  of  Tactics  was  purely  mili 
tary  and  its  head  was  the  Commandant  of  Cadets, 
whose  term  of  office  rarely  exceeded  four  years.  The 
others  were  as  entirely  academic,  and,  with  the  ex 
ception  of  ordnance,  were  headed  and  controlled  by 
men  chosen  by  the  Corps  of  Engineers  and  for  what 
were  then  considered  life  positions  The  utmost  care 
had  ever  been  taken  in  the  selection,  with  the  result  that, 
in  1839  when  Grant  and  his  classmates  entered  upon, 
their  career,  the  three  great  departments — Engineering, 
Philosophy,  and  Mathematics — were  presided  over  by 
men  who  stood  unsurpassed  in  their  line  and  unchal 
lenged  in  their  high  estate  until,  bowed  with  the  weight 
of  years,  they  successively  retired.  One  and  all  they 
were  there  to  greet  their  former  pupil  when  at  the 
close  of  the  great  war,  as  commanding  general,  he  once 
more  stood  before  them. 

"  Dean  of  the  Faculty  "  was  Dennis  H.  Mahan,  Pro 
fessor  of  Engineering.  Next  to  him  stood  W.  H.  C. 
Bartlett,  Professor  of  Natural  and  Experimental 
Philosophy.  Third  on  the  list  was  Alfred  E.  Church, 
Professor  of  Mathematics.  Each  in  turn  had  been 
graduated  at  the  head  of  his  class.  Each  in  his  earliest 
days  of  service  had  been  assigned  as  instructor  in  the 
scientific  branches  of  the  curriculum.  Each  had  proved 
his  mettle  and  been  chosen  for  further  advancement. 
It  is  no  disparagement  of  their  successors,  or  of  their 

50 


WEST  POINT  AND  ITS  PROFESSORS 

associates,  to  say  that  for  thirty  years  this  immortal 
trio  stood  paramount  at  West  Point  and  gave  the  tone 
that  made  it  famous.  Strong  and  virile  chiefs  were 
they,  spurring  the  laggards,  cheering  the  ambitious,  hew 
ing  ever  close  to  the  line  and  standing  shoulder  to 
shoulder  against  every  attempt  to  lower  the  standard. 
Stern  in  their  creed  they  may  have  been,  but  unerring 
in  their  practice.  To  their  hands  the  nation  had  com 
mitted  its  chosen  to  be  schooled  for  its  defense  and 
fitted  for  the  profession  that  demands  of  its  votaries 
the  supreme  measure  of  self-sacrifice  and  devotion. 
Men  of  gentler  mold,  but  of  enthusiasm  like  unto  their 
own,  were  at  the  head  of  other  departments,  notably 
Baily  in  Chemistry,  and  later  the  courtly  and  genial 
soldier  who  had  so  long  been  his  first  assistant,  Henry 
L.  Kendrick, — both  well  worthy  to  sit  in  council  with 
the  immortal  three. 

In  the  Department  of  Drawing,  where  to  his  own 
surprise  Grant  was  destined  to  do  some  very  creditable 
work,  the  artists  of  America  were  represented  by  Prof. 
Robert  W.  Weir.  The  Department  of  French,  wherein 
Grant  found  himself  utterly  at  sea,  was  conducted  by 
Prof.  Claudius  Berard.  Gentlemen  of  the  old  school 
were  these,  but  being  chosen  from  civil  life,  they 
wisely  left  all  matters  of  academic  or  military  dis 
cipline  to  their  more  martial  associates.  The  matter  of 
military  discipline,  pur  et  simple,  was  vested  in  the  head 
of  the  Department  of  Tactics  and  in  the  person  of  the 
Commandant  of  Cadets.  This  office  was  filled  in 
Grant's  day  by  Colonel  Charles  F.  Smith,  whom  Grant 
declared  his  ideal  of  the  officer  and  the  gentleman.  A 
more  knightly,  courteous  and  soldierly  man  never  wore 
the  uniform  of  the  United  States.  For  three  of  his 
four  cadet  years  Grant  lived  under  the  constant  super 
vision  of  this  most  distinguished  officer  and  looked  up 
to  him  as  he  did  to  no  other.  When  in  1842  and  the 
close  of  First  Class  Camp,  Colonel  Smith  finally  gave 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

way  to  another,  Grant  and  his  classmates  thought  never 
to  look  upon  his  like  again,  and  in  less  than  five  years 
it  was  Grant's  lot  to  share  with  Smith  the  honors  and 
plaudits  of  their  chiefs  and  comrades  in  one  of  the 
fiercest  assaults  before  the  walls  of  Mexico.  In  less 
than  twenty  years,  strangest  of  all,  it  was  Grant's  lot  to 
be  issuing  orders  in  front  of  Donelson  to  his  right  hand 
man,  his  best  and  noblest  division  commander,  his  most 
loyal  subordinate  in  that  first  fierce  campaign — the  com 
mandant  of  his  admiration  in  his  cadet  days  at  the  Point. 
It  reads  like  romance. 

For  the  first  two  years  of  this  academic  career,  from 
September  1st  to  June,  and  for  six  days  out  of  every 
seven,  the  young  West  Pointer  of  the  ante  'helium  period 
was  reasonably  sure  of  coming  under  the  eyes  of  Prof. 
Church,  and  that  mathematical  course  is  the  basis  of 
West  Point's  educational  system.  At  the  beginning  of 
the  third  year  of  his  bondage,  as  Grant  regarded  it, 
Prof.  Bartlett  took  up  the  reins  where,  at  the  close 
of  the  Calculus,  they  had  been  dropped  by  Church, 
and  for  nine  months  longer  the  pupil  was  driven  at 
steady,  unswerving  gait  through  the  intricacies  of 
Mechanics  and  the  later  glories  of  Astronomy.  In  the 
fourth  or  final  period,  he  fell  under  the  daily  comment 
and  criticism  of  the  Professor  of  Engineering,  whose 
duty  it  was  to  impart  the  finishing  touches.  Keen,  in 
cisive,  often  satirical,  sometimes  sarcastic,  his  daily 
rasping  stung  the  mental  skin  to  vehement  action — a 
recitation  in  Engineering  or  Strategy  in  that  awe 
some  presence  was  an  intellectual  needle  bath  of  ice 
water,  swift  followed  by  swifter  rub  with  a  steel  wire 
towel.  The  cadet  who  came  before  Mahan  with  merely 
a  superficial  knowledge  of  the  subject  inevitably  found 
himself  in  pitiable  plight.  There  never  was  a  quicker 
eye  or  sharper  tongue  for  shams  of  any  kind.  Un 
erringly  and  almost  instantly  he  could  discover  just 
how  much  a  pupil  knew  on  any  one  point,  and  then  if 

52 


From  the  collection  of  F.  H.  Meserve 

MAJOR-GENERAL  CHARLES  F.  SMITH 
Grant's  hero  to  the  end 


WEST  POINT  AND  ITS  PROFESSORS 

that  pupil  were  not  humility  personified  it  was  rich  to 
hear  Mahan  dissect  him.  No  cadet  from  the  head  of 
the  class  down  to  the  foot  was  safe  from  his  sarcasm 
or  proof  against  his  prodding.  They  feared  even  as  they 
admired  him.  They  gloried  in  his  teachings  as  one  does 
in  a  desperate  battle — after  it  is  over.  There  was  just 
one  quality  in  a  pupil  which  he  apostrophized  again  and 
again  as  indispensable  to  the  would-be  commander  of 
fighting  men.  Without  it  brilliancy,  knowledge,  book 
learning,  study,  strategy  and  tactics,  all  combined,  were 
of  little  worth.  "  Common  sense,"  said  Mahan,  was 
worth  them  all,  and  was  the  one  quality  without  which 
no  man  could  hope  to  win.  This  he  held  to  as  a  theory 
prior  to  the  great  war  of  the  sixties ;  this  he  triumphantly 
declared,  as  a  result  of  observation  of  all  its  leaders,  a 
proved  and  petrified  fact;  and  this  he  emphasized  in 
his  lecture  room  in  May,  1866,  to  the  very  last  class 
graduated  under  the  auspices  of  the  Corps  of  Engineers. 
As  the  crowning  example  of  his  theory  he  pointed  to 
the  career  and  record  of  the  man  who  away  back  in  '43 
had  impressed  the  master  above  all  his  mates,  the  shy, 
unobtrusive,  somewhat  unsoldierly  youth  whom  we  have 
seen  entering  in  1839,  Mr.  Hamer's  unwilling  candidate 
from  the  Buckeye  State. 

Here  is  what  the  great  teacher  said  late  in  the  sixties 
of  his  modest  pupil  of  the  early  forties: 

Grant  is  remembered  at  his  alma  mater  as  having  a 
cheery  and  at  the  same  time  firm  aspect,  and  a  prompt,  decided 
manner.  His  class  standing  was  among  that  grade  which  has 
given  to  the  line  of  the  Army  some  of  its  most  valuable  officers, 
like  Lyon,  Reynolds,  Sedgwick,  etc.  .  .  .  He  was  what  we 
termed  a  first  section  man  in  all  his  scientific  studies;  that  is, 
one  who  accomplishes  the  full  course.  He  always  showed  him 
self  a  thinker  and  a  steady  worker.  He  belonged  to  the  class 
of  compactly  strong  men  who  went  at  their  task  at  once  and 
kept  at  it  until  they  had  finished.  His  mental  machine  was 
of  the  powerful,  low  pressure  class,  which  condenses  its  own 
steam  and  consumes  its  own  smoke,  and  which  pushes  steadily 
forward  and  drives  all  obstacles  before  it. 

53 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

But  all  this  came  as  the  result  or  end  of  the  four 
years  of  training.  We  have  still  to  speak  of  the  means. 

There  were  other  famous  teachers  at  the  Academy 
in  Grant's  day,  men  who  helped  to  shape  his  course  in 
life,  and  some  of  them,  later,  to  be  closely  and  intimately 
associated  with  it.  Chief  of  these  was  William  W.  S. 
Bliss  of  the  Class  of  '33  and  of  the  Fourth  U.  S. 
Infantry,  assistant  in  the  Department  of  Mathematics, 
he  whose  charm  of  manner  and  whose  gifts  and  graces 
were  such  that  he  had  won  from  his  own  classmates 
the  pet  name  of  "  Perfect."  When  it  is  remembered 
that  then  and  ever  after,  cadet  nicknames  were  bestowed 
rather  for  some  salient  physical  peculiarity,  or  in  com 
memoration  of  some  luckless  and  ludicrous  slip,  it  is 
indicative  of  the  extreme  of  cadet  regard  in  the  case  of 
Bliss.  The  same  gifts  attached  to  him  as  instructor  in 
mathematics,  and  later  still  as  the  brilliant  and  ad 
mired  aide-de-camp  of  Zachary  Taylor — the  same  gifts 
had  so  impressed  his  pupil  in  1840,  and  his  regimental 
comrades  in  the  Mexican  war,  that  the  news  of  his 
lamented  death,  in  1854,  brought  grief  and  mourning  to 
the  man  of  all  others  to  whom  that  death  brought  tem 
porary  benefit.  Promoted  captain  Fourth  Infantry, 
vice  Bliss,  deceased,  Ulysses  Grant  stepped  in  1853 
from  the  quartermastership  of  the  regiment,  a  position 
which  he  had  occupied  much  of  the  time  since  the 
Mexican  war,  into  the  captaincy  long  held  by  Bliss, 
and  with  it  into  the  control  of  adverse  fate  and  in 
fluences.  That  upward  step  led  him  within  the  twelve 
month  down  and  out  of  the  regiment  in  which  he  was 
held  in  honor  and  affection,  and  which,  in  spite  of  his 
dislike  of  the  military  service,  he  had  yet  learned  to  love. 
There  were  days  of  bitter  sorrow  and  humiliation  in 
store  for  him  whose  cheery  manner  and  round,  boyish 
face,  as  says  Mahan,  gave  little  evidence  of  the  strength 
and  purpose  stored  up  in  his  character.  Possibly  in  the 
Divine  pity  and  the  prescience  which  "  shapes  our  ends  " 

54 


WEST  POINT  AND  ITS  PROFESSORS 

it  was  deemed  essential  to  the  fruition  of  the  future 
that  for  the  time  being  the  wanderings  of  Ulysses 
should  lead  him  to  the  desert  places,  through  penury 
and  privation,  through  slight  and  sufferance,  through 
the  valley  of  the  shadow  that,  having  explored  the 
depths  he  should  the  more  vehemently  strike  against 
their  more  deadly  miasma,  that  he  should  presently 
reappear,  crowned  with  strength  and  energy,  and  then 
sweep  onward  with  vision  undimmed  and  purpose  un 
daunted  to  the  crowning  triumph  of  an  utterly  un 
matched  career. 

One  may  well  be  warranted  in  believing  that  there 
was  ever  present  with  Grant  the  guidance  of  these 
great  teachers  of  his  boy  days,  that  in  the  hours  of  his 
humiliation  and  neglect  the  spirit  of  the  young  soldier 
who  won  such  fame  at  Monterey,  at  Molino  and 
Chapultepec,  and  yet  so  soon  found  it  forgotten  and 
outweighed,  was  sustained  by  the  spirit  of  his  admired 
predecessor,  teacher  and  regimental  comrade,  "  Per 
fect  "  Bliss.  Be  that  as  it  may,  through  all  the  trials 
that  were  to  come,  this  much  is  known  from  his  own 
Memoirs  and  from  the  admiring  testimony  of  old 
comrades  who  were  occasionally  thrown  with  him — he 
never  lost  his  faith,  or  grit,  or  hope,  and  even  for  those 
who  had  most  harshly  judged,  most  despitefully  used 
him,  he  never  lost  his  own  sense  of  justice,  he  never 
failed  to  exercise  his  charity.  Whether  he  knew  it  or 
not,  there  stood  ever  by  him  "  The  Spirit  of  Old  West 
Point." 

For  even  in  his  cadet  days  there  had  come  to  him 
an  odd  presentiment  or  vision.  For  many  a  long  year, 
remembering  possibly  the  fun  and  raillery  at  home  over 
his  father's  hapless  boast  concerning  the  phrenologist's 
prediction,  Grant  kept  this  to  himself,  but  in  his 
Memoirs  he  admits  that  the  sight  of  the  magnificent 
Winfield  Scott,  full  panoplied  and  in  the  dazzling 
uniform  of  the  earlier  days,  receiving  on  review  the 

55 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

salute  of  the  rigid  gray  and  white  line,  awoke  in  him 
a  strange  conviction  that  some  day  it  should  come  to 
him,  too,  to  stand  in  Scott's  stead  on  that  beautiful 
parade  ground,  to  hear  the  cannon  thunder  and  the 
glistening  line  crash  to  the  "  present,"  to  see  the  sword 
blades  gleaming  and  the  silken  colors  drooping,  all  in 
his  honor. 

But  enough  of  sentiment  and  dreaming.  It  is  time 
to  take  up  the  practical,  every  day,  humdrum  of  cadet 
life  as  Ulysses  found  it.  To  tell  of  that  and  possibly 
of  a  certain  few  besides,  his  classmates,  whose  associa 
tion  in  those  early  days  led  to  momentous  consequences 
in  days  to  come,  and  then  to  lead  him  to  the  longed-for 
hour  of  which  his  comrades  used  to  sing,  and  he  to 
smile  in  sympathy,  for  sing  he  could  not : 

Hurrah,  hurrah,  for  the  merry  bright  month  of  June 

That  opens  a  life  so  new, 
When  we  doff  the  cadet  and  don  the  brevet 

And  change  the  gray  for  the  blue. 


CHAPTER  VI 
WEST  POINT  AND  ITS  CURRICULUM 

THE  first  year's  course  at  the  Military  Academy  in 
the  days  of  Grant  was  confined  mainly  to  recitations  in 
mathematics,  in  French  and  in  what  were  termed  Eng 
lish  studies.  The  lessons  were  long,  but  abundant  time 
was  given  in  which  to  learn  them,  and  every  reasonable 
precaution  was  taken  to  insure  the  purpose  of  the  study 
hours.  Inspections  of  quarters  were  frequent  during 
the  day  and  sentries  twixt  seven  and  ten  at  night  paced 
the  corridors  and  barracks,  and  occasionally  peered  into 
the  rooms  to  satisfy  themselves  and  inquisitive  officers 
that  everything  on  their  posts  was  "  All  right,  sir." 
This  was  a  comprehensive  formula.  It  meant  that 
every  cadet  in  that  corridor  was  in  his  own  room  and 
presumably  engaged  in  his  allotted  task,  that  no  smok 
ing,  skylarking  or  surreptitious  enterprise  of  any  kind 
was  going  on.  At  9.30  P.M.  the  drums  and  fifes  came 
thundering  "  tattoo  "  among  the  resounding  walls,  and 
then,  and  not  till  then,  the  cadet  was  free  to  make 
down  his  bed  and  turn  in  for  the  night.  At  ten  P.M. 
there  came  three  sharp  staccato  drum  taps,  at  which 
summons  the  cadet  inspectors  of  subdivisions  made 
swift  circuit  of  the  rooms  to  see  to  it  that  every  man  was 
in  and  every  light  was  out. 

But  cadet  sentries  were  not  required  to  see  to  it 
that  the  book  in  use  was  Davies'  Bourdon  or  Church's 
Analytical.  The  library  of  the  Academy  was  even  then 
well  stocked  with  standard  fiction.  Cadets  were  given 
daily  access  to  its  shelves  during  the  brief  release  from 
quarters  between  four  P.M.  and  the  sunset  gun.  One 
book  a  week  might  be  taken  out  by  any  cadet  so  minded, 
and  it  presently  resulted  that  the  reading  habits  of  the 

57 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

father  had  in  Grant's  case,  become  fixed  in  the  son.  It 
was  the  one  relaxation  of  that  gloomy  year  of  his 
"  plebedom." 

Finding  after  the  first  few  weeks,  under  Prof. 
Church  and  "  Perfect "  Bliss,  that  algebra  presented  no 
difficulties,  Grant  proceeded  to  take  things  easily. 
The  routine,  the  roll-calls,  the  ramrod  precision 
in  every  detail,  the  incessant  facings  and  march 
ings  bored  and  wearied  him.  The  studies  at  the  start 
failed  to  arouse  his  energies.  He  had  time,  now  that 
camp  and  its  hourly  drills  were  over,  to  reflect  on  his 
surroundings  and  his  prospects.  The  more  he  saw  of 
the  former  the  less  he  liked  them;  the  more  he  could 
hear  of  the  latter  the  less  they  appealed  to  him. 

But  in  boy  days  about  Georgetown  he  had  learned  at 
his  mother's  knee  the  old,  old  admonition  as  to  him  who 
"  having  put  his  hand  to  the  plough,"  there  was  to  be 
neither  look  nor  footstep  backward.  The  die  had  been 
cast.  For  weal  or  for  woe  he  had  signed  with  Uncle 
Sam,  and  he  was  made  of  stuff  too  stern  to  think  of 
falter  now.  Very  modestly,  long  years  later,  he  had 
disclaimed,  as  has  been  said,  any  right  to  membership 
among  the  descendants  of  the  vehement  old  Clan  Grant, 
yet,  subconsciously,  perhaps,  and  in  his  own  simple, 
matter-of-fact  way,  the  young  cadet  was  living  up  to  its 
spirited  motto,  "  Stand  fast — stand  sure."  He  had 
entered  for  the  contest,  and  though  he  cared  nothing  for 
the  prize,  he  meant  to  fight  on  to  the  end.  That  trait 
proved  rather  a  valuable  asset  to  the  nation  in  the  by 
and  by.  We  read  of  it  at  intervals  in  the  sixties. 

Meantime,  to  make  plebe  life  bearable,  he  took  to 
reading.  The  standard  novelists  of  the  day  were  Scott 
and  Bulwer.  The  sea  tales  of  Marryat  and  Cooper 
were  fascinating.  The  unwritten  laws  of  the  Corps  of 
Cadets  left  the  Fourth  classmen  entirely  to  themselves 
throughout  the  barrack  days  of  the  initial  year — the 
object  being  to  level  the  array,  to  develop  class  feeling, 

58 


WEST  POINT  AND  ITS  CURRICULUM 

and  to  teach  them  thoroughly  to  know  one  another. 
Outside  of  the  few  in  his  own  corridor  or  section,  Grant 
mingled  very  little,  even  among  his  own  classmates. 
Kindly  and  good  natured,  he  was  nevertheless  looked 
upon  at  the  start  as  a  trifle  shy  and  unresponsive.  They 
let  him  alone,  and  in  his  possible  loneliness  the  authors 
whom  he  read  so  carefully  became  his  friends  and 
familiars. 

And  so  it  happened  that  after  the  January  examina 
tions  and  the  closing  of  algebra,  with  Grant  standing 
easily  in  the  highest  section,  and  the  taking  up  of  geom 
etry  and  French,  he  had  acquired  the  habit  of  only 
reading  once  through  the  lesson  of  the  day,  and  of 
giving  hours  to  the  pages  of  romance.  Moreover,  he  was 
writing  much  that  winter  to  home  and  mother.  There 
was  rude  awakening  to  come  with  the  new  term.  Geom 
etry  was  less  clear  to  him  than  were  the  intricacies 
of  algebra.  "  Shades,  shadows  and  perspective  "  were 
a  bagatelle,  but  "  descriptive "  proved  a  stumbling 
block,  though  there  was  not  then  enough  of  it  to  greatly 
lower  his  standing.  The  foe  that  threatened  his  defeat 
was  the  French  language. 

From  start  to  finish  Grant  could  never  master  nor 
abide  that  tongue — the  language  of  courts  and  diplo 
macy,  the  language  of  all  others  that  Talleyrand  must 
have  had  in  mind  when  he  declared  its  main  purpose 
was  to  conceal  thought.  Holding  his  own  in  mathe 
matics  during  the  second  half,  Grant  found  himself 
going  down  section  by  section  in  French,  until  there  was 
danger  of  his  dropping  out  entirely,  and  yet  it  seemed 
to  give  him  no  concern. 

A  furious  debate  was  raging  that  winter  in  Con 
gress.  A  quarter  century  had  passed  without  a  war, 
excepting  the  deadly  encounters  with  our  Indian  wards, 
which  always  cost  the  army  heavily.  The  very  argu 
ments  we  hear  to-day  and  heard  so  very  often  in  the 
fifties  were  being  urged  against  all  expenditure  for 

59 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

military  purposes,  and  it  was  seriously  proposed  to 
abolish  West  Point  as  a  costly  and  unnecessary  burden, 
even  as  a  menace  to  the  interests  of  the  people.  The 
friends  of  the  Academy  took  alarm,  and  one  cadet,  at 
least,  took  comfort.  So  probable  seemed  the  success 
of  the  movement  that  he  had  become  almost  indifferent 
to  the  weekly  marks.  He  was  too  young  at  the  time  to 
realize  that  in  all  such  anti-military  demonstrations  one 
hears  mainly  the  orators  of  the  antis.  The  wiser  heads 
are  silent  until  it  comes  to  a  vote.  When  the  opposition 
finally  ended  and  Grant  found  that  the  Fates  were  with 
West  Point,  and  though  he  knew  it  not,  with  him,  he 
was  disturbed  to  see  how  far  he  had  dropped  in  French, 
and  how  his  marks  even  in  mathematics  had  suffered. 
Moreover,  by  that  time  the  spring  was  well  advanced 
and  there  was  left  too  short  a  while  in  which  to  recover 
the  lost  standing.  In  French  he  could  not  regain  his 
ground,  even  with  the  encouragement  of  kindly  old 
Claudius  Berard.  This  accounts  for  his  low  grade  in 
the  Fourth  class  year. 

Another  matter  that  worried  him  awhile:  he  found 
himself  registered  as  Ulysses  Simpson  Grant,  and 
sought  through  proper  military  channels  to  have  it 
changed  to  the  Hiram  Ulysses  of  his  birth.  But  the 
initials  given  him  by  Mr.  Hamer  appealed  to  the  au 
thorities  of  Uncle  Sam  at  Washington,  and  Sam  Grant 
he  was  destined  to  remain. 

In  June  the  class  of  '43  was  advanced  to  the  dignity 
of  "  yearlings,"  and  the  delight  of  welcoming  the  new 
comers — perhaps  the  most  thrilling  epoch  of  cadet  life — 
and  then  another  trait  became  noticeable  in  Grant : 
he  would  take  no  part  in  any  "  hazing  "  that  inflicted 
humiliation  or  pain.  He  worried  through  the  summer 
camp  of  1840  with  no  more  enthusiasm,  but  with  all  the 
serenity,  displayed  in  that  of  '39.  He  welcomed  the  re 
turn  to  barracks  and  the  studies  of  that  second  year, 
even  though  French  continued  a  bugbear,  because  he 

60 


WEST  POINT  AND  ITS  CURRICULUM 

shone  in  the  section  room  through  analytical  geometry 
and  calculus,  standing  in  the  highest  grade,  and  finish 
ing  tenth  in  rank.  Drawing,  too,  proved  attractive. 

Standing  only  "  one  file  from  foot "  in  French,  at 
the  end  of  the  plebe  year,  he  had  climbed  to  forty- 
fourth  place  in  that  study  in  a  class  numbering  fifty- 
three,  at  the  end  of  the  second.  Mathematics  and  draw 
ing  were  far  easier  to  him,  and  therein  he  stood  far 
higher.  But  then  there  was  the  Conduct  Roll.  From 
first  to  last  there  never  was  a  time  when  "  demerit " — 
the  black  marks  given  for  every  violation  of  the  regu 
lations,  great  or  small — did  not  throw  him  back  into 
the  lower  fourth  of  his  class.  Just  what  made  up  the 
bulk  of  the  reports  at  his  expense  it  is  easy  to  conjec 
ture.  He  never  could  be  "  military  "  as  it  was  termed, 
and  yet,  in  spite  of  all  his  distaste  for  soldiership,  he  had 
found  a  friend  and  believer  in  the  soldier  of  all  others 
whom  he  most  admired — their  model  commandant  and 
head  of  the  Department  of  Tactics,  Colonel  Charles  F. 
Smith. 

For  purposes  of  instruction  the  Corps  was  then 
divided  into  four  companies  of  about  sixty  each,  mak 
ing  a  compact  little  battalion  which,  including  the  cadet 
officers,  was  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  strong.  As 
the  plebes  became  yearlings  in  June  some  twenty  of 
their  number,  those  most  soldierly  in  bearing,  in  dress 
and  in  general  conduct,  were  decorated  with  the  chev 
rons  of  a  corporal.  At  the  end  of  the  second  year  the 
best  of  these  were  advanced  to  the  grade  of  sergeant — 
the  very  best  becoming  sergeant-major  and  first  (or 
"orderly")  sergeant.  At  the  end  of  the  third  year, 
and  just  before  they  entered  on  the  glories  of  First  Class 
camp,  the  highest  prizes  of  the  military  course  were 
meted  out — the  model  soldier  officer  of  the  class  becom 
ing  the  cadet  adjutant,  four  of  their  number  being  ap 
pointed  cadet  captains,  and  twelve  were  named  lieu 
tenants.  In  the  wildest  dreams  of  his  plebe  days,  if 

61 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

ever  so  matter-of-fact  a  fellow  had  any,  Grant  never 
beheld  himself  in  any  higher  role  than  that  of  a  cadet 
private — the  grade  with  which  all  start  alike  and  all 
but  a  chosen  few  retain  to  the  end.  But  something  in 
that  unobstrusive,  uncomplaining  youth  from  southern 
Ohio  appealed  to  the  soldier  sense  of  Colonel  Smith. 
At  all  events,  some  two  or  three  of  the  class  fell  short 
of  the  commandant's  expectations  and,  to  Grant's  utter 
amaze,  his  name  was  read  out  before  the  battalion  the 
night  they  returned  from  "  furlough  "  late  in  August — 
Sam  Grant  was  made  sergeant. 

It  was  told  at  the  time  that  the  wit  of  the  class  ex 
plained  it  by  saying  "  the  Commandant  had  to  get '  Sam  ' 
out  of  sight  and  into  the  line  of  file  closers  where  his 
being  out  of  step  was  less  apt  to  be  noticed.  The  only 
way  he  could  fix  it  was  to  make  Sam  a  sergeant."  Color 
was  given  to  this  half  malicious  explanation  by  the  fact 
that  when  the  First  Class  officers  were  "  made,"  the 
following  June,  Sergeant  Sam  was  incontinently  drop 
ped.  With  unruffled  composure  he  laid  aside  the  sword 
and  stepped  back  into  the  ranks,  a  First  Class  private, 
and  the  real  explanation  was  that  Grant  didn't  seek  the 
office  and  didn't  want  it,  because  it  involved  certain 
duties  and  responsibilities  from  which  he  shrank — those 
of  reporting  minor  errors,  neglects  and  misdeeds  of 
fellow  cadets. 

Certain  it  is  that  Grant  got  more  demerit  as  a 
sergeant  than  he  ever  did  when  a  plebe  and  in  any  one 
of  the  years  in  which  he  served  as  private,  and  yet  the 
commandant  would  have  it  there  was  soldier  stuff  in 
"  that  young  fellow  with  the  old  head,"  and,  as  has  been 
said,  Smith  lived  to  prove  he  was  right — lived  on  to 
see  his  would-not-be  sergeant  win  the  highest  honors 
accorded  a  subaltern  in  the  Mexican  war,  lived  to  be  his 
pupil's  most  loyal  and  devoted  subordinate  at  Donelson, 
and  died  but  a  few  weeks  later  up  the  Tennessee  at 
Savannah,  his  most  distinguished  and  lamented  asso- 

62 


WEST  POINT  AND  ITS  CURRICULUM 

ciate.  Even  Sherman  had  not  then  reached  in  Grant's 
affection  and  gratitude  the  place  held  by  Charles  F. 
Smith. 

"  Entirely  cool  and  without  emotion,"  says  an  old 
friend  and  neighbor,  when  he  drove  him  from  the  end 
of  the  stage  route  to  the  waiting  family  at  Georgetown, 
was  "  Lys "  when  he  came  home  on  furlough.  It 
seems  that  something  of  warmth  and  sentiment  was 
looked  for,  but  that  wasn't  the  way  of  the  Grants. 
Hearty  "  How  are  yous  ?  "  passed  between  father,  son 
and  brothers,  but  the  meeting  between  the  mother  and 
her  first-born,  now  in  his  twentieth  year,  was  not  for 
even  neighbors'  eyes  to  see,  nor  for  Grant  to  speak  of 
then  or  thereafter.  Frank  as  are  his  Memoirs,  there  are 
some  matters  he  leaves  to  the  imagination.  For  in 
stance,  there  was  one  matter  greatly  to  his  young 
renown  which  he  does  not  mention  at  all. 

Perhaps  it  is  because  there  was  no  need,  for  all  West 
Point  was  telling  of  it  at  the  time,  and  it  was  not  long  in 
spreading  throughout  the  army.  In  his  cadet  days  there 
was  one  accomplishment  in  which  he  outclassed  the 
entire  Corps.  He  was  but  a  tolerable  fencer,  he  was  no 
dancer,  but  even  the  riding  master  himself  was  no  match 
for  him  in  horsemanship.  Sam  Grant's  riding  was  the 
envy  of  every  man  who  saw  it. 

Only  in  1839  nad  riding  become  a  part  of  the  in 
struction  at  the  Point,  the  first  teacher  being  James 
McAuley,  who  is  said  to  have  had  a  fair  knowledge  of 
the  old-time  cavalry  seat  and  not  much  else.  Neverthe 
less,  it  was  he  who  schooled  the  Class  of  '43  until  within 
six  months  of  their  graduation,  when  he  resigned  and 
his  place  was  promptly  filled  by  a  gruff  and  martial 
dragoon  of  the  German  type — one  Henry  R.  Hersh- 
berger,  who  lasted  six  years,  and  saw  Grant's,  and 
five  other  classes  through  their  graduation  ride. 

Mention  has  been  made  of  the  queer  lot  of  horses 
at  the  Point  in  1840.  Few  of  them  were  good,  some 

63 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

were  positively  bad,  and  one  or  two  well  nigh  intract 
able.  Of  the  last  was  a  big,  raw-boned  sorrel,  named 
York.  He  had  a  trick  of  rearing  and  tumbling  over 
backwards  that  was  disconcerting  to  most  riders. 
McAuley  could  do  nothing  with  him,  but  young  Grant 
quietly  said  he  thought  the  horse  could  be  ridden,  and 
proceeded  to  show  how.  No  matter  what  the  brute 
could  do,  except  lie  down  and  roll,  Grant  seemed  to 
stick  to  him  like  a  burr.  He  broke  him  of  rearing  and 
tumbling  by  a  well-directed  tap  or  two  of  the  butt  of 
the  pistol,  between  the  ears.  Then  with  patience  in 
exhaustible  he  began  to  teach  that  horse  better  manners. 
"  He'll  kill  you  some  day,  Sam/'  said  a  classmate.  "  I 
can  die  but  once,"  is  said  to  have  been  Grant's  answer, 
though  it  sounds  unlike  him.  York  became  known  as 
Grant's  horse,  and  when  pompous  old  Hershberger 
took  up  the  reins  in  January,  '43,  he  speedily  saw  in 
Grant  the  most  accomplished  rider  and  trainer  in  the 
class,  and  wisely  left  him  to  his  own  devices.  The 
result  is  an  old  story,  best  told,  probably,  by  General 
James  B.  Fry  in  his  Reminiscences.  Grant  in  his 
Memoirs  never  so  much  as  refers  to  it. 
As  General  Fry  says: 

"  The  class,  still  mounted,  was  formed  in  line  through  the 
centre  of  the  hall.  The  riding  master  placed  the  leaping  bar 
higher  than  a  man's  head  and  called  out  '  Cadet  Grant.'  A 
clean-faced,  slender,  blue-eyed  young  fellow,  weighing  about 
one  hundred  and  twenty  pounds,  dashed  from  the  ranks  on  a 
powerfully  built  chestnut-sorrel  horse,  and  galloped  down  the 
opposite  side  of  the  hall.  As  he  turned  at  the  farther  end  and 
came  into  the  stretch  at  which  the  bar  was  placed,  the  horse 
increased  his  pace  and  measuring  his  stride  for  the  great  leap 
before  him,  bounded  into  the  air  and  cleared  the  bar,  carrying 
his  rider  as  if  man  and  beast  had  been  welded  together.  The 
spectators  were  breathless." 

Prof.  Coppee's  description  of  York  and  his  method 
of  leaping  adds  to  the  fame  of  Grant's  horsemanship.  It 
would  seem  that  York  in  taking  a  high  bar  never  did 

64 


WEST  POINT  AND  ITS  CURRICULUM 

so  from  the  stride,  but  rather  as  the  cat  leaps,  crouch 
ing  first  and  then  bounding  upward — the  most  difficult 
of  all  leaps  for  the  rider  to  sit  either  gracefully  or 
securely. 

Moreover,  Coppee's  description  of  Grant,  the  cadet 
rider,  goes  more  into  detail.  The  picture  he  draws  of 
the  quiet  young  horseman  is  typical  of  the  times.  The 
Corps  had  no  riding  dress  in  '43.  The  designated 
platoon  donned  its  oldest  coat  and  trousers,  held  the 
latter  down  over  the  shoe  by  the  strap  of  the  uncouth 
spurs  then  issued  to  our  dragoons ;  the  cadets  went 
through  their  hour  in  the  dust  and  dirt  and  semi- 
darkness,  with  little  thought  of  appearances.  'Neither 
then  nor  for  fifty  years  thereafter  did  the  cadets  learn 
very  much  of  the  finesse  of  equitation.  The  methods 
were  as  crude  as  the  mounts,  but  in  most  cases  a  good 
military  seat  was  acquired  and  many  a  dashing  cavalry 
rider  was  developed.  For  many  a  long  year  the  record 
of  Sam  Grant  and  York  stood  unmatched,  and  the 
methods  of  the  riding  hall  unchanged. 

Riding  and  reading  seem  to  have  been  Grant's  only 
recreation  during  the  few  years  of  his  cadet  life.  There 
was  one  diversion  or  distraction,  however,  that  is  sig 
nificant.  Although  he  did  not  dance  it  seems  that  even 
in  undergraduate  days  he  was  susceptible  to  feminine 
influence,  and  to  one  of  his  most  loyal  friends  and  faith 
ful  biographers  Grant  himself  told  the  story.  The  last 
two  years  of  his  academic  life  were  quite  filled  with 
romantic  dreamings  in  which  a  certain  fair  daughter 
of  the  Jerseys  was  the  central  figure.  Always  courteous 
and  gentle  to  women,  Grant  found  pleasure  in  their 
society.  He  was  a  good  talker,  too,  and  a  cheery  com 
panion.  One  who  knew  and  admired  him,  wrote  of  his 
sunny  manner,  and  his  trim,  slender,  soldierly  form. 
West  Point  had  taken  the  farm  boy  stoop  out  of  his 
back  and  shoulders,  even  though  it  returned  with  the 
weight  of  cares  and  the  farm  days  that  followed  his 
5  65 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

resignation  from  the  army  in  '54.  Though  never  at 
taining  the  cadet  standard  of  soldierly  smartness,  Grant 
seemed  martial  enough,  no  doubt,  in  the  eyes  of  girl 
friends  at  home  and  at  the  Point.  In  one  of  these 
latter  he  became  sentimentally  interested,  yet  won  his 
wager  that  she  would  marry  before  he  would  be  free 
to  wed.  It  was  fortunate  for  his  peace  of  mind,  per 
haps,  that  he  saw  the  inevitable  in  abundant  time. 

And  as  it  drew  toward  its  close  Grant's  cadet  life 
proved  after  all  not  so  wearisome.  He  had  acquired  a 
fine  education  in  science,  a  fair  one  in  history  and  in 
the  essentials, — a  mental  discipline  given  probably  in 
those  days  in  no  other  school  in  the  United  States,  and 
he  had  blossomed  out,  as  it  were,  during  the  last  two 
years, — mingled  more  with  his  kind  and  become  known 
to  and  appreciated  by  his  fellows  in  the  Corps.  That 
cheery  manner  had  gained  him  the  good  will  of  men  in 
the  upper  classes,  even  while  it  endeared  him  to  so 
many  of  his  own.  As  for  the  juniors,  as  they  entered 
year  by  year,  his  simple  kindliness,  his  utter  lack  of 
pretense,  speedily  won  him  their  liking,  and  as  they 
grew  to  observe  him  and  better  to  know  him,  that  liking 
became  solid  respect.  In  his  own  class  he  had  little  by 
little  come  to  be  looked  upon  as  one  of  the  soundest, 
surest  men,  "  Not  brilliant/'  said  they,  "  but  shrewd, 
square  and  full  of  common  sense." 

Even  in  "  plebe  "  days  there  had  been  First  Classmen 
who  had  a  pleasant  word  for  Grant.  There  was  his 
"  statesman,"  Sherman,  from  up  Lancaster  way,  a  quick, 
nervous,  energetic,  talkative  fellow.  There  was  the 
grave,  dignified  Virginian  Thomas,  there  were  Van- 
Vliet  and  Getty  and  that  farsighted  Southerner  Ewell, 
who  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war  in  '61  was  heard  to 
say :  "  There's  one  man  I  hope  the  North  won't  find 
out  in  time.  He's  quick  and  resolute  and  daring,"  and 
he  was  speaking  of  Grant.  In  the  class  next  Sherman's 
were  Lyon,  Garesche  and  John  F.  Reynolds,  all  gallant 

66 


WEST  POINT  AND  ITS  CURRICULUM 

soldiers,  all  destined  to  be  shot  dead  in  battle  for  the 
Union.  There  were  the  two  Garnetts,  Bob  and  Dick, 
both  to  die  fighting  for  the  other  side.  There  was  Levi 
Gantt,  who  was  to  head  the  stormers  at  Chapultepec, 
and  fall  "  shot  to  flinders,"  yet  urging  on  his  men.  There 
was  Richardson,  who  was  to  meet  his  soldier  fate  at 
Antietam,  and  Don  Carlos  Buell,  destined  to  command 
the  Army  of  the  Ohio  side  by  side  with  him,  Grant,  of 
the  Army  of  the  Tennessee.  In  the  class  just  ahead  of 
Grant  was  another  of  his  statesmen — Rosecrans,  whom 
he  was  to  relieve  at  Chattanooga.  There  were  George 
Mason  and  Henry  Stanton,  whom  he  envied,  because 
they  entered  the  dragoons  on  graduation,  both  doomed 
to  die  in  battle.  There  was  Williamson,  whom  in  '51 
he  envied  even  more,  because  he  had  become  professor 
of  mathematics  at  the  Kentucky  Military  Institute. 
There  was  the  tall  Southerner,  Longstreet,  who  was  to 
stand  up  as  one  of  his  supporters  at  his  wedding,  and 
stand  up  against  him  in  many  a  hard- fought  field,  and, 
later  still,  by  him  and  because  of  him,  to  be  drawn  again 
into  the  fold  of  the  Union. 

Then  entering  the  year  after  him  were  men  whose 
friendship  he  valued.  Buckner,  of  Kentucky,  who 
"  staked  "  him  when  his  fortunes  were  at  lowest  ebb, 
whose  sword  he  received  in  unconditional  surrender  at 
Donelson,  and  whose  purse  he  replenished  on  the  spot. 
There  were  Burwell,  Woods,  and  J.  P.  Smith,  who 
battled  side  by  side  with  him  at  Molino,  Monterey  and 
Chapultepec,  each  dying  on  the  field,  while  he,  fighting 
as  fearlessly,  went  on  without  a  scar  to  the  achievement 
of  his  higher  destiny.  There  was  Hancock,  superb 
on  many  a  field  and  unrivalled  as  a  corps  commander. 
There  was  Aleck  Hayes  who,  brave  as  Caesar  and  be 
loved  among  his  generals,  was  to  die  under  him  in  the 
Wilderness.  There  was  Reed,  another  object  of  his 
envy,  because  in  1850  he,  too,  had  been  summoned  to 
the  Kentucky  institution  as  professor.  There  was  still 

67 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

another  class,  that  of  1845,  m  which  he  had  friends  and 
followers — yearlings  who  looked  up  to  him  as  a  First 
Classman,  and  were  close  to  him  in  days  to  come — 
Davy  Russell,  of  his  own  Fourth  Infantry,  who  was  to 
fall  "  beneath  a  soldier's  blow  "  in  battle  in  the  Shenan- 
doah,  Perry,  who  was  to  die  fighting  at  Molino.  There 
were  "  Baldy  "  Smith  and  Thomas  J.  Wood,  who  were 
to  win  the  double  stars  under  his  command.  There 
was  Thomas  G.  Pitcher,  who,  in  1861,  mustered  into 
the  military  service  of  the  United  States  the  Twenty- 
first  Illinois  Infantry  Volunteers,  with  their  colonel 
U.  S.  Grant — Pitcher  whom  in  time  it  was  to  be 
Grant's  lot  as  acting  Secretary  of  War  to  select  for  the 
superintendency  of  West  Point,  a  jump  at  once  from  the 
highest  corps  to  what  was  held  to  be  the  lowest,  when 
in  1866  the  congress  took  the  Academy  from  the  con 
trol  of  the  Engineers  and  threw  it  open  to  the  line. 

There  were  even  plebes  who  looked  up  to  him,  as 
plebes  ever  will  to  First  Classmen,  lads  who  entering  in 
'42  spent  one  year  with  him  in  the  battalion.  Of  these 
were  George  B.  McClellan  and  Thomas  J.  Jackson, 
names  destined  to  become  famous  but  a  few  years 
later,  to  be  linked  with  his  own  in  Mexico,  as  was  that 
of  gallant  "Sandy"  Rodgers,  who,  joining  Grant's 
regiment  after  Monterey,  died  fighting  among  the  fore 
most  at  Chapultepec.  In  this  class,  too,  were  Stone- 
man,  Wilkins,  Wilcox  and  Thomas  McConnell,  who  was 
to  be  adjutant  of  the  Fourth  Infantry  and  Grant's  fel 
low  staff  officer,  and  finally,  at  the  foot  of  the  class, 
George  E.  Pickett,  of  whom  hereafter. 

Chosen  friends  he  had  in  his  own  class.  There  were 
a  dozen  of  them  who  formed  a  little  circle  within  the 
class,  the  T.  I.  O.  (twelve  in  one),  the  dozen  who  wore 
a  ring  with  a  mystic  symbol,  and  swore  eternal  friend 
ship,  as  boys  will,  and  kept  it,  as  boys  seldom  do.  Then 
as  graduation  drew  nigh,  and  the  class  were  bidden  to 
set  down  their  preferences  for  future  employment  in 

68 


WEST  POINT  AND  ITS  CURRICULUM 

the   army,   Grant   promptly   declared   himself    for   the 
Dragoons. 

Great  was  his  disappointment,  though  not  his  sur 
prise,  when  a  few  weeks  later  there  reached  him  at  the  old 
home  in  Ohio  the  brief  official  announcement  that,  as 
brevet  second  lieutenant  he  had  been  assigned  to  the 
Fourth  Regiment  of  Infantry  and  ordered  at  the  ex 
piration  of  his  graduation  leave  to  report  at  Jefferson 
Barracks.  There  was  just  one  consolation,  that  was 
closeness  to  the  home  of  his  chum,  classmate  and,  toward 
the  last,  his  roommate  at  the  Point — Frederick  T.  Dent, 
of  Missouri.  That  he  should  some  day  be  general-in- 
chief  was  already  one  of  Grant's  beliefs  or  fancies,  as 
he  has  frankly  told  us.  That  he  should  find  his  own 
domestic  commander-in-chief  in  the  sister  of  his  for 
mer  chum  and  in  the  suburbs  of  St.  Louis  he  does  not 
seem  to  have  anticipated. 


CHAPTER  VII 
FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  ARMY  LIFE 

IT  cannot  be  said  that  Grant's  entry  into  the  military 
service  was  auspicious.  There  were  several  reasons  for 
this.  First  was  the  old  antipathy  to  the  career  of  a 
soldier — he  much  preferred  the  arts  of  peace,  the  as 
sociations  of  the  home,  the  farm,  the  fireside.  His 
tastes  were  domestic,  and  his  belief  at  the  time  of  gradu 
ation  was  that  the  United  States  would  have  little  need 
of  soldiers.  In  the  second  place  his  health  had  begun 
to  suffer.  The  fever  and  ague  of  his  boyhood  had  left 
him  keenly  sensitive  to  colds,  and  about  Christmas 
time  he  had  contracted  a  cough  which  refused  to  yield 
to  the  treatment  in  vogue  at  the  Point,  which  increased 
as  June  drew  nigh,  and  which  sent  him  home  reduced 
in  flesh  and  looking  and  feeling  far  from  well.  There 
had  been  consumption  in  the  family,  and  both  his 
father  and  mother  became  alarmed.  Let  it  be  recorded 
at  once,  however,  that  fears  of  consumption  were 
banished  and  the  cough  gradually  routed  by  the  best  and 
most  rational  treatment  yet  devised — abundance  of  open 
air,  sunshine  and  healthful  exercise.  As  when  on  cadet 
furlough,  Grant  found  an  excellent  roadster  all  ready 
for  his  use,  in  the  old  barn,  and  he  spent  many  hours 
of  every  day  in  saddle,  and  sometimes  in  driving,  with 
mother,  sister,  or  possibly  some  Georgetown  girl  as  a 
companion,  and  long  before  his  leave  expired  he  was 
well  on  the  way  to  robust  health.  Yet  he  was  not  happy. 
It  has  pleased  some  of  his  biographers  to  speak  of  his 
class  standing  as  rather  low.  This  is  unjust.  In  all 
the  really  difficult  branches,  those  which  call  for  mathe 
matical  ability,  his  standing  was  high.  Moreover,  we 
know  that  his  professors  considered  him  one  of  the 

70 


FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  ARMY  LIFE 

brainiest  men  of  his  class.  Bardie,  his  classmate,  has 
gone  on  record  as  having  said  in  the  spring  of  1843: 
"  If  ever  the  country  is  confronted  by  a  great  emergency 
Sam  Grant  will  be  the  man  to  meet  it."  Prof.  Davies 
declared  at  Columbia  College  in  New  York  City,  the 
winter  of  1861-62,  that  he  had  predicted  Grant's  gen 
eralship  as  far  back  as  the  month  of  his  graduation, 
and  was  confident  that  Prof.  Church  had  equal  con 
fidence  in  him.  That  Church  had  that  confidence  as 
far  back  as  1843  is  obvious  from  the  fact  that  he  assured 
Grant  of  a  detail  as  instructor  in  the  Department  of 
Mathematics. 

As  summed  up  in  June,  1843,  Grant  came  out  six 
teenth  in  engineering  and  seventeenth  in  chemistry. 
He  had  stood  sixteenth  in  mathematics  the  first  year 
and  tenth  the  second.  He  was  well  up  in  mechanics 
and  in  astronomy.  It  was  in  French,  in  ethics,  and  in 
the  drill  books,  that  he  fell  below  twenty.  In  artillery, 
for  instance,  he  stood  as  near  the  foot  as  he  did  in 
French,  and  in  the  matter  of  demerit  for  minor  breaches 
of  the  regulations  he  was,  as  has  been  said,  among  the 
"  lower  fourth."  His  general  standing  at  graduation 
(twenty-one  out  of  thirty-nine)  was  lowered,  therefore, 
by  these  lapses  in  branches  he  looked  upon  with  rather 
good-natured  indifference. 

But  if  a  military  career  after  all  was  to  be  his,  a 
commission  in  the  Dragoons  would  suit  him  better  than 
any  other  branch.  He  knew  and  loved  horses,  knew 
how  to  train,  care  for  and  humor  them.  He  felt  that 
he  would  be  a  capable  and  useful  cavalry  officer,  and 
therefore  sought  the  mounted  service.  In  those  days 
we  had  two  regiments  of  Dragoons  and  one  of  Mounted 
Rifles.  Grant  had  asked  for  the  Dragoons.  Now  if  he 
had  asked  for  the  Rifles,  he  might  have  had  his  wish. 
The  War  Department  for  some  reason  refused  at  first 
to  commission  any  of  the  Class  of  '43  in  the  Dragoons. 
It  assigned  George  Stevens,  Lewis  Neill,  Rufus  Ingalls 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

and  Cave  J.  Couts  to  the  Rifles,  and  later  transferred 
them  to  the  Dragoons.  Grant,  too,  might  have  suc 
ceeded  had  he  availed  himself  of  this  roundabout 
method,  but  his  application  was  uncompromising: 
"  Dragoons  or  Fourth  Infantry " — and  infantry  it 
proved  to  be. 

Along  late  in  August  the  new  uniform  came — the 
severe,  single-breasted,  dark-blue  frock  coat  of  the  ex 
isting  regulations,  absolutely  clerical  in  cut  and  plain 
ness,  its  only  ornament  the  row  of  brass  buttons,  a  pair 
of  shoulder-straps  to  be  worn  for  "  undress,"  and  a 
pair  of  gilt  epaulets  for  parade.  With  this  were  pre 
scribed  sky-blue  trousers  with  a  white  stripe  down  the 
outer  seam,  a  plain  black  leather  sword  belt,  a  sash  of 
crimson  silk  net,  and  a  flat  "  Palmetto  "  cap.  There 
was  little  to  attract  the  eye  in  the  dress  of  a  soldier 
of  these  United  States  in  1843.  There  was  even  less  in 
'61,  and  Grant's  first  public  appearance  in  the  garb  of  a 
subaltern  of  infantry,  as  indicative  of  the  respect  in 
which  it  was  held  by  the  proletariat,  disgusted  him  to 
the  extent  of  wishing  he  might  never  have  to  wear  it 
again.  Although  in  saddle,  where  he  appeared  to  best 
advantage,  and  in  the  everyday  uniform,  without  sash, 
belt  or  epaulets,  he  was  greeted  with  derisive  grins 
and  gibes  by  youthful  fellow  citizens,  and  on  his  re 
turn  from  a  ride  to  Cincinnati,  found  that  magnate  the 
village  blacksmith  swaggering  ostentatiously  about 
with  a  pair  of  broad  white  stripes  of  cotton  pinned  to 
his  trouser  seams  in  obvious  and  satirical  imitation.  It 
is  comfort  to  scores  of  his  brother  officers  of  every 
grade  who  on  many  an  occasion  have  had  to  suffer  like 
indignities,  sometimes  at  the  hands  of  men  who  knew 
better,  that  they  had  this  at  least  in  common  with  Grant. 

The  incidents  recorded  here  added  not  a  little  to 
Grant's  aversion  to  the  service.  There  were  times  when 
Grant  looked  at  his  father's  busy  tannery,  and  asked 
himself  whether  it  might  not  have  been  better  to  gradu- 

72 


FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  ARMY  LIFE 

ate  even  there;  but,  once  again  the  old  lesson  came  up 
before  him:  he  had  put  his  hand  to  the  plough,  he  had 
agreed  to  serve  four  years  as  an  officer  in  return  for 
his  four  years  as  a  cadet,  and  those  four  years,  at  least 
must  be  paid  in  full.  If  they  could  be  spent  teaching 
mathematics  under  Prof.  Church  at  the  Point,  it  might 
not  be  so  bad.  While  thus  detailed  he  could  be  on  look 
out  for  a  professorship  in  some  college,  university  or 
academy,  and  with  Prof.  Church's  recommendation  and 
influence  there  was  little  doubt  that  he  could  secure  a 
position  as  many  another  had  done  before  him. 

Another  matter  deserving  serious  thought  was  that 
of  pay.  The  generally  accepted  idea  concerning  a  West 
Pointer  was  that  of  a  young  man  who  had  been 
boarded,  lodged,  clothed,  coddled  and  exhaustively 
educated,  all  at  the  expense  of  the  nation,  and  in  ad 
dition  had  been  paid  nearly  a  dollar  a  day — "  big 
wages  "  at  that  time.  It  is  true  that  the  cadet  was 
paid  twenty-four  dollars  a  month ;  but  not  until  he  left 
the  Point  on  leave  or  furlough  did  he  ever  see  a  cent  of 
it.  It  is  true  that  he  was  given  lodging  in  barracks, 
and  medical  attendance  when  ill  or  injured,  and  a  most 
thorough  schooling  in  science  and  in  discipline,  but  there 
the  beneficence  ended.  Out  of  his  eighty  cents  a  day 
the  cadet  had  to  pay  for  every  item  of  his  uniform 
and  clothing,  for  every  morsel  that  he  ate  or  microbe 
that  he  drank,  for  his  barber,  his  baths,  for  even  the 
band,  in  part  at  least,  for  blacking  and  varnishing,  for 
his  blankets,  mattress,  pillow,  his  every  text  book,  his 
drawing  materials,  his  shoes,  gloves,  belts,  buckles, 
brasses,  shako,  sash  and  plume,  if  a  cadet  officer  (and 
costly  items  were  they,  for  in  the  sixties  it  took  much 
more  than  a  month's  pay  to  buy  the  sash  itself).  In 
fact,  if  it  were  not  for  the  monthly  stoppage  of  two 
dollars  to  provide  for  "  equipment "  on  graduation 
hardly  a  man  could  hope  to  emerge  with  a  cent  to  his 
credit,  and  in  the  days  of  Grant  the  graduate  would 

73 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

begin  life  in  the  line  with  the  munificent  pay  of  about 
fifty  dollars  per  mensem,  added  to  which  were  four 
rations  per  diem,  valued  at  forty  cents,  and  the  cost 
of  one  soldier  servant,  estimated  at  eleven  dollars  a 
month,  plus  a  ration  a  day.  The  total  amount  of  his 
stipend  was  less  than  one  hundred  dollars  a  month 
out  of  which  to  defray  every  expense  except  those  of 
a  living  room,  a  doctor,  and  wood  sufficient  to  warm 
him.  Furthermore  it  was  expected  and  required  of  him 
that  on  this  sum  he  should  maintain  the  dignity  and 
station  of  a  gentleman,  and  be  ready  to  entertain  hos 
pitably  such  fellow  citizens  as  came  his  way — and  many 
did. 

And  yet,  fortunately  for  the  United  States,  one  may 
hazard,  there  were  officers  and  gentlemen  who  in  spite 
of  these  and  other  considerations,  found  pleasure  in 
army  life  and  association,  or  else  they  were  gifted  with 
a  sense  of  duty  that  held  them  wedded  to  the  task  in 
hand. 

In  his  Memoirs  Grant  says  very  little  of  his  home 
life  during  those  three  months  of  rest  and  recuperation. 
Late  in  August,  however,  much  restored  in  health,  he 
bade  the  household  adieu,  drove  to  Cincinnati  and  there 
took  steamer  down  stream  and,  in  good  season,  reached 
what  was  then  one  of  the  largest  and  most  populous  of 
the  military  posts  of  the  United  States.  Headquarters 
and  eight  of  the  ten  companies  of  the  Fourth  Infantry, 
with  as  many  from  the  Third,  made  up  the  garrison  of 
Jefferson  Barracks,  only  ten  miles  below  St.  Louis. 
A  fine  old  soldier,  Colonel  Stephen  W.  Kearny,  was 
the  commanding  officer.  Another  and  already  famous 
officer  was  Lieutenant  Colonel  Ethan  Allen  Hitchcock, 
commanding  the  Third  Infantry,  and  the  very  centre 
of  garrison  talk  and  interest  because  of  his  having  for 
the  second  or  third  time  braved  the  displeasure  of  our 
magnificent  General  Scott.  Hitchcock  was  a  monarch 
among  army  men  as  a  scholar,  a  tactician,  a  student  of 

74 


FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  ARMY  LIFE 

law  and  regulations.  Lieutenant  Don  Carlos  Buell  had 
just  been  tried  by  court-martial  for  striking  a  soldier. 
The  evidence  was  conclusive  that  the  soldier  had  at 
tacked  the  lieutenant,  who  struck  only  in  self-defense. 
Scott  had  demanded  that  the  court  reassemble  and  ex 
plain  why  it  had  not  found  him  guilty.  Hitchcock 
wrote  the  reasons  why  the  court  could  not  be  compelled 
to  alter  its  findings,  and  the  President  sustained  the 
court.  It  was  only  one  of  several  occasions  on  which 
Hitchcock's  letters  or  opinions  defeated  the  will  of  the 
imperious  general,  who  eventually  learned  to  lean  upon 
the  advice  of  the  man  he  almost  detested,  and  at  the 
outset  of  his  famous  campaign  in  Mexico  he  wisely 
attached  Hitchcock  to  his  staff.  In  years  to  come  this 
same  gifted  soldier  was  to  throw  his  stalwart  influence 
in  support  of  the  commanding  general  of  an  infinitely 
greater  army,  and  his  regard  for  the  general  in  question 
began  in  the  autumn  of  1843  when,  as  Brevet  Second 
Lieutenant  Grant,  he  served  under  Hitchcock's  daily 
observation  at  Jefferson  Barracks. 

And  there  were  others.  The  quarters  were  crowded, 
several  of  the  junior  officers  living  two  in  a  room.  The 
barracks  could  not  begin  to  accommodate  all  the  troops. 
Some  of  the  companies  were  under  canvas.  Some  of 
the  officers  were  permitted  to  find  quarters  among  the 
hospitable  homes  of  residents  in  the  immediate  neighbor 
hood.  The  city  was  near  enough  to  enable  them  to  drive 
thither  for  social  enjoyment,  but  most  of  the  entertain 
ing  took  place  at  the  garrison.  The  barracks  were  a 
famous  resort  for  the  beaux  and  belles  of  the  neighbor 
hood.  Music  and  dancing,  or  riding  and  driving  parties, 
filled  up  the  leisure  hours.  Drills  and  duties  except 
the  daily  dress  parade  were  usually  completed  in  the 
morning,  and  the  first  winter  of  Grant's  garrison  life 
moved  swiftly  and  not  unpleasantly  away. 

Mindful  of  Prof.  Church's  promise  to  apply  for 
him  as  assistant  in  the  Department  of  Mathematics, 

75 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

the  young  officer  was  studiously  going  over  the  two 
years'  course,  from  algebra  to  calculus,  by  way  of 
preparation.  Not  being  a  dancing  man  himself,  he 
stood  his  share  of  the  expenses,  but  took  little  part  in 
the  enjoyment.  He  might  have  escaped  social  entangle 
ments  of  any  kind  but  for  the  riding  parties  in  which 
he  was  so  much  at  home.  The  best  horseman  in  the 
garrison  could  hardly  be  expected  to  mount  and  ride 
always  alone,  and  among  the  kindly,  hospitable  house 
holds  within  easy  ride  of  the  barracks  was  that  of  the 
Dents,  at  White  Haven,  the  home  of  his  chum  and 
roommate,  Brevet  Second  Lieutenant  Frederick  T. 
Dent,  now  of  the  old  Sixth  Infantry,  and  many  a  mile 
away.  Here  the  name  of  Ulysses  Grant  soon  became 
familiar  as  household  words.  It  seems  that  Grant  was 
very  much  in  evidence  when  there  returned  to  the  fire 
side  a  member  of  the  family  who  had  been  away 
"  finishing "  at  school,  then  visiting  relatives  at  other 
points — a  seventeen-year-old  girl,  eldest  of  the  daugh 
ters  and  one  possessing  many  an  attraction.  Letters 
from  home  had  told  her  much  of  Fred's  classmate, 
Lieutenant  Grant.  Home  chat  had  told  him  much  of  the 
absent  sister.  Though  they  had  never  met  before,  they 
met  by  no  means  as  strangers  when  for  the  first  time 
these  young  people  looked  into  each  other's  eyes  and 
began  a  comradeship  that  was  destined  to  become  a 
permanent  alliance.  Julia  Dent  had  not  been  home  a 
month  before  her  friends  began  the  inevitable  teasing 
and  chaffing,  and  the  man  in  the  case  was  "  the  little 
lieutenant  in  the  big  epaulets  " — Ulysses  Simpson  Grant. 
It  seems  furthermore  that  the  odds  at  first  were 
not  on  the  side  of  the  young  subaltern.  There  were 
these  points  in  his  favor:  He  had  been  Fred's  room 
mate  through  the  last  year  of  their  cadet  life.  They 
were  fellow  members  of  that  little  "  wheel  within  a 
wheel,"  the  T.  I.  O.  Brother  Fred's  letters  from  the 

76 


FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  ARMY  LIFE 

Point  had  had  much  to  say  in  praise  of  his  chum,  and 
the  girls  especially  were  prepared  to  like  him.  Then 
it  was  an  odd  coincidence  that  just  when  the  brother 
had  gone  to  join  the  Sixth  Infantry  at  a  distant  station, 
his  chosen  friend  should  arrive  at  the  barracks,  and 
speedily  take  the  brother's  place  at  the  fireside. 

All  over  the  broad  United  States,  in  every  household 
from  which  a  son  has  been  sent  through  West  Point 
or  Annapolis  to  distant  lands  or  seas,  no  visitor  is  so 
eagerly  welcomed  as  he  who  comes  as  classmate,  com 
rade  or  intimate  of  the  absent  one.  In  the  case  of 
Brother  Fred's  own  "  Sam  "  Grant,  every  member  of 
the  family  circle  was  eager  to  make  him  at  home. 
Simple,  straightforward,  cheery  and  kindly  in  manner, 
gifted  with  innate  courtesy  toward  all  women  and 
schooled  by  love  for  his  own  mother  to  constant  thought 
for  and  deference  to  other  mothers,  it  resulted  that 
even  before  the  return  of  the  eldest  daughter  he  had 
won  the  hearty  friendship  of  Mrs.  Dent.  A  more 
potent  ally  than  the  prospective  mother-in-law  no  suitor 
needs.  Moreover,  the  elder  Dent,  independently  of  his 
son's  biased  estimate,  had  taken  a  fancy  to  the  level 
headed  youth  in  the  queer,  straight-cut,  regimental 
frock.  A  limited  few  of  our  young  graduates  in  those 
days  had  quit  the  army  for  a  higher  service  and  taken 
holy  orders.  All  they  had  to  do  in  changing  coats  was 
to  strip  the  gilt  buttons  from  the  uniform,  dip  it  in  the 
dyer's  vat,  and  lo,  the  garb  of  the  soldier  of  his  country 
had  changed  to  that  of  the  soldier  of  the  cross.  Mr. 
Dent — Colonel  Dent,  as  hailed  in  the  American  fashion 
of  that  and  many  another  day — was  a  fairly  well-to-do 
merchant  in  St.  Louis,  with  a  country  home  and  planta 
tion  some  miles  southwest  of  town  and  to  the  west  of 
Jefferson  Barracks.  The  Dents  were  slave-holders,  as 
were  many  Missouri  folk,  even  as  far  north  as  the  Iowa 
line,  and  "  de  Gunnel  "  as  his  "  darkies "  called  the 
master,  had  an  eye  for  a  good  horse  and  for  a  horse- 

77 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

man.  The  "cunnel"  speedily  discovered  that  in  his 
unassuming  way  young  Grant  was  a  wonderful  man 
ager  of  horse  flesh,  and  this  in  itself  was  much  to  com 
mand  the  elder's  liking.  One  and  all,  therefore,  they 
had  grown  to  greatly  fancy  Fred's  chum,  when  along  in 
the  winter  Miss  Julia  came  home,  and  then  speedily  it 
began  to  dawn  upon  the  family  that  further  possibilities 
were  looming  before  them. 

The  young  people  seemed  to  fall  in  with  each  other's 
ways  from  the  start.  Duties  at  barracks  were  light  in 
mid-winter.  Grant  found  it  possible  to  spend  hours 
away  from  his  books.  For  him  in  those  days  "  the  mess  " 
room  had  no  fascinations.  He  took  no  part  in  the  six 
penny  game  of  "  Brag  " — the  southwestern  prelude  to 
poker.  He  took  no  comfort  in  the  so-called  pleasures 
of  the  table,  for  he  never  ate  more  than  enough  to 
sustain  life,  and  he  had  not  then  begun  to  know  either 
the  stimulus  or  the  sting  that  lives  and  lures  in  the 
bottle.  He  frankly  disliked  the  dancing  parties  and  he 
as  little  cared  for  the  pomp  and  ceremony  of  parade. 
Battalion  and  company  drill,  as  required  by  Colonel 
Kearny,  he  conscientiously  took  part  in,  but  most  of  his 
afternoons  he  later  spent  in  saddle  and  his  evenings  in 
study,  having  that  instructorship  ever  in  view.  And 
when  he  began  to  appear  at  garrison  parties  that  winter 
it  was  to  stand  and  watch  Julia  Dent  dancing  with  men 
whose  feet  could  move  in  rhythm  with  the  witching 
strains  of  Julien's  waltzes  (for  this  was  before  the 
days  of  Gungl,  Strauss  and  Keler  Bela),  and  were  at 
home  in  the  nimble  caperings  demanded  by  the  polka 
or  the  schottische  then  in  vogue.  The  concerts  of  the 
regimental  band  had  been  neglected  functions  so  far  as 
Grant  was  concerned,  until  some  little  time  after  Miss 
Dent's  return.  Then  he  began  to  take  his  place  as  one 
of  the  audience,  although  the  only  music  that  appealed 
to  him  was  that  of  the  young  girl's  joyous  voice. 

But  if  in  concert  hall,  on  ballroom  floor,  or  at  the 
78 


FIRST  IMPRESSIONS  OF  ARMY  LIFE 

banquet  board  her  admirer  appeared  to  little  advantage, 
there  was  none  to  match  him  when  they  went  afield. 
The  Dent  girls  rode,  and  rode  well,  as  did  many  of  the 
daughters  of  our  Southern  planters,  and  Grant  rode  as 
though  he  had  spent  his  life  in  saddle.  Long  hours  in 
the  crisp  sunshine  of  the  Missouri  winter  they  galloped 
through  the  wood  paths  and  along  the  beautiful  bluffs 
of  the  Father  of  Waters.  Then  as  the  spring  came  on 
and  the  young  girl  could  indulge  in  her  favorite  study, 
botany,  Grant  was  her  constant  escort.  Of  farm  lore 
and  maxims  he  had  a  head  full.  Of  oats,  barley,  wheat 
and  hay,  corn  and  potatoes  he  had  had  practical  knowl 
edge,  but  in  Nature's  flower  garden  he  was  a  novice  and 
she  was  at  home,  and  took  delight  in  teaching,  and  the 
young  student  of  science  and  mathematics  who  longed 
to  quit  soldiering,  found  that  with  one  girl  looking  on 
even  soldier  life  had  taken  on  a  charm,  found  that  even 
the  dreary  hour  of  drill  or  parade  had  become  gifted 
with  a  glamour  never  known  to  him  before.  And  then 
one  soft  spring  morning,  venturing  too  far  from  the 
beaten  track,  her  young  and  skittish  mount,  floundering 
and  plunging  in  suddenly-discovered  quicksand,  well 
nigh  hurled  Miss  Dent  from  saddle  into  the  muddy 
waters.  It  took  all  her  slender,  sinewy  young  escort's 
skill  and  horsemanship  to  save  her,  and  as  they  rode 
homeward  that  evening  it  became  revealed  to  him  at 
least  that  any  injury  to  her  would  mean  misery  to  him. 
What  the  incident  had  revealed  to  her  he  dared  not  at 
the  moment  inquire.  What  on  earth  could  warrant  a 
girl's  leaving  a  home  of  ease,  almost  of  luxury,  to 
share  the  one  room  and  a  kitchen,  then  the  legal  lot, 
and  something  like  eight  hundred  a  year,  the  sum  total 
of  the  pay  and  emoluments  of  a  second  lieutenant  of 
infantry  in  the  regular  army? 

No  wonder  Colonel  Dent  of  a  sudden  took  alarm! 


CHAPTER  VIII 

AN   INTERRUPTED   COURTSHIP 

BUT  graver  matters  than  even  paternal  objections 
had  come  to  put  an  end  to  botanizing  and  to  postpone 
for  a  time  at  least  the  telling  of  the  old,  old  story. 
Troublous  days  were  in  store,  especially  for  the  South, 
which  section  had  encouraged  the  separation  of  Texas 
from  the  Republic  of  Mexico,  and  was  now  fathering 
a  scheme  to  annex  the  great  territory  to  the  United 
States.  It  would  mean  vast  gain  to  Southern  representa 
tion  and  influence  in  Congress, -and  vastly  greater  exten 
sion  to  the  area  of  slavery.  It  is  not  the  purpose  of 
this  volume  to  dissect  the  political  questions  leading  to 
the  two  wars  in  which  Ulysses  Grant  took  part,  but 
rather  to  attempt  to  describe  the  characteristics  which 
made  him  a  most  distinguished  soldier  in  both.  Once 
upon  a  time,  discussing  the  career  of  the  great  captains 
of  history,  a  close  student  ventured  on  the  assertion 
that  no  great  general  had  failed  to  show  in  youth  the 
qualities  that  made  him  famous.  Instantly  came  the 
query :  "  How  about  Grant — who  ever  heard  of  him 
before  Belmont?"  The  answer  was  courteous,  con 
fident  and  instant:  "  Grant  is  a  case  in  point.  Of  all 
the  lieutenants  of  the  Army  in  Mexico  Grant  was  per 
haps  the  most  conspicuous  for  soldiership,  for  daring 
and  ability."  For  the  moment  it  was  thought  that  the 
speaker  was  utterly  in  error,  but  to  the  minds  of  all  who 
heard  he  presently  proved  his  case.  As  to  this  the 
reader  may  form  independent  opinion  later  on. 

In  the  spring  of  1844  relations  between  the  United 
States  and  Mexico  had  become  so  strained  that  the 
"  First  Military  Department "  which  bordered  on  the 
then  independent  State  of  Texas,  was  ordered  rein- 
So 


AN  INTERRUPTED  COURTSHIP 

forced.  General  Zachary  Taylor,  old  "  Rough  and 
Ready,"  was  its  commanding  officer  and  headquarters 
were  at  Fort  Jesup,  a  few  miles  southward  from  Grand 
Ecore  on  the  Red  River.  The  South  was  vehemently 
cheering  the  Texans  and  championing  the  proposed 
annexation.  The  North  was  less  vehemently  opposed. 
Fair-minded  statesmen  saw  in  the  move  a  wrong  to  a 
sister  republic,  hitherto  courteous  and  friendly.  The 
Grant  household  at  Georgetown,  in  spite  of  the  strong 
Southern  and  pro-slavery  sentiments  of  Brown  County, 
was  divided  in  spirit.  Right  or  wrong  the  administra 
tion  had  determined  on  a  show  of  force  along  the  border. 
Grant  saw  and  heard  it  coming,  knew  that  the  Fourth 
Infantry  doubtless  would  be  among  the  first  ordered 
to  the  front,  and  sought  a  twenty  days'  leave  in  which  to 
visit  home  and  see  the  family.  There  were  serious 
matters  concerning  his  future  and  he  wished  to  consult 
his  father. 

And  so  it  happened  he  was  away  from  Jefferson 
Barracks  when  marching  orders  came,  and  the  gal 
lant  Fourth  was  distributed  among  several  of  the  old- 
time,  high  pressure,  "  passenger  packets  "  plying  be 
tween  St.  Louis,  Memphis,  Vicksburg,  Natchez  and 
New  Orleans,  and  paddled  away  over  the  June  rise  of 
the  mighty  river,  destined  to  see  many  a  stirring  day  of 
battle  and  many  a  mile  of  marching  ere  ever  it  should 
again  breast  the  tawny  waters  of  the  Mississippi. 

The  news  reached  the  young  officer  too  late  to  enable 
him  to  catch  his  regiment.  The  same  message  told  him 
that  his  field  kit  had  been  boxed  up  and  taken  along  by 
a  thoughtful  comrade.  There  was  really  nothing  pro 
fessional  to  demand  his  return  to  Jefferson  Barracks. 
The  shortest  road  to  the  regiment  and  to  duty  was 
down  stream  past  Cairo  and  Columbus, — where  less 
than  twenty  years  thereafter  he  was  destined  to  be 
the  centre  of  national  attention — past  Memphis  and 
Vicksburg,  where  later  he  was  not  to  be  journeying 
6  81 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

solitary  and  unnoted.  Yet  it  seems  from  his  own 
Memoirs  that  instead  of  at  once  following  on  after  the 
colors  of  the  Fourth,  he  fled  back  to  his  haunts  at 
Jefferson  Barracks,  deserted  now  by  all  save  a  mourn 
ful  lot  of  wives,  children,  laundresses  and  "  hospital " 
soldiers,  all  temporarily  in  charge  of  a  certain  lieutenant 
of  dragoons,  one  Benjamin  S.  Ewell,  an  upper  class 
cadet  when  Grant  was  a  plebe.  The  garrison  had 
dwindled  from  sixteen  companies  of  foot  to  a  handful 
of  non-combatants,  and  the  command  from  a  colonel 
to  a  cornet.  Ewell,  with  Sherman  and  Thomas,  had 
taken  note  of  Grant,  as  first  classmen  "  size  up  "  a  plebe, 
and  Ewell  was  unfeignedly  glad  to  see  his  young  friend 
again,  glad  to  bid  him  share  his  quarters  during  his 
stay,  glad  to  take  the  responsibility  as  post  commander 
of  adding  a  few  days  to  his  brief  leave  of  absence,  for 
it  speedily  dawned  upon  Ewell  that  there  was  a  lady  in 
the  case. 

Out  toward  the  old  Gravois  road  galloped  Grant  the 
very  day  of  his  arrival,  through  the  scenes  made  sweet 
and  sacred  by  the  presence  and  companionship  of  the 
girl  whom  now  he  was  seeking  with  well-defined  pur 
pose;  and,  barely  half-way  to  the  Dent  homestead,  he 
found  the  "  branch,"  usually  a  placid  and  unpretentious 
creek,  well  nigh  boiling  over  its  banks.  The  ford  was 
six  feet  deep  in  a  turbid  flood.  Bridge  there  was  none. 
There  was  nothing  for  it  but  turn  back  and  wait  for 
the  waters  to  recede,  or  to  spur  in  and  swim.  It  was  a 
superstition  of  his,  says  Grant,  in  his  Memoirs,  never 
to  turn  back  when  once  he  had  set  forth  to  do  a  thing. 
It  was  the  same  old  lesson  of  the  plough  that  he  had 
learned  long  years  before,  the  lesson  that  was  to  hold 
him  steadfast  in  the  snows  about  Donelson,  stern  set 
in  the  siege  of  Vicksburg,  and  indomitable  even  against 
the  fearful  pounding  from  the  Rapidan  to  the  James — 
the  never  look  back,  never  turn  back  spirit  that  swept 
him  onward  to  final  victory.  It  was  a  drenched  and 

82 


AN  INTERRUPTED  COURTSHIP 

bedraggled  Leander  that  reached  the  astonished  and 
welcoming  Hero  of  that  Missouri  Hellespont.  Brother 
Fred's  cast-off  "  cits  "  had  to  be  levied  on,  and  the 
new  arrival  dried  out,  before  he  could  take  his  ac 
customed  place  at  the  family  board,  but  even  such  a 
drenching  could  not  chill  the  ardor  of  so  determined 
a  wooer. 

Before  they  parted  Julia  Dent  had  given  her  word 
to  that  "  little  lieutenant  in  the  big  epaulets,"  but  in 
plighting  her  troth  she  had  secured  to  herself  the  life 
long  devotion  of  a  man  as  steadfast  in  love  as  ever 
he  stood  in  war.  From  the  day  of  their  engagement 
in  the  early  summer  of  1844,  the  fiercest  critic,  the 
bitterest  foe,  of  Grant's  fortunes  and  fame  could  never 
find  the  shadow  of  a  story  on  which  to  found  a  whisper 
of  scandal.  To  his  dying  day  the  woman  never  lived 
who  could  win  from  Grant  one  look,  word  or  thought 
that  of  right  belonged  to  Julia  Dent. 

Alexander  the  Great  was  cold  to  women.  Caesar 
was  not  above  suspicion,  whatever  he  demanded  of 
his  wife.  Marlborough,  Napoleon,  Nelson  and  many 
among  their  predecessors  in  martial  renown,  and  many 
among  their  train,  however  constant  to  their  war  god 
dess,  Bellona,  have  succumbed  to  the  smiles  and  wiles 
of  women  other  than  the  lawful  partner  of  their  joys 
and  sorrows.  But  for  this  Ulysses  there  never  lived 
a  Circe.  The  drums  and  fifes  of  the  Fourth  were  play 
ing  "  The  Girl  I  Left  Behind  Me  "  the  day  "  Sam  " 
Grant  rejoined  the  colors  at  Fort  Jesup  (possibly 
their  adjutant  was  responsible  for  that),  and  there  was 
a  new  light  in  the  blue-gray  eyes,  and  a  fine  blush  on  the 
fair  skin  and  clean-cut  face  of  this  old-headed  youngster 
of  the  regiment  as  "  the  mess  "  gathered  about  him  with 
their  laughing  greetings,  but  that  suspected  engagement, 
as  yet  a  secret  between  him  and  the  lady  of  his  love,  was 
no  laughing  matter  to  Lieutenant  Grant.  It  was  to  in 
fluence,  indeed  to  dominate,  his  entire  life.  The  star 

83 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

of  his  destiny  might  lead  him  on  to  the  highest  honors 
that  in  peace  or  in  war  the  nation  ever  yet  had  bestowed 
upon  a  son,  but  the  centre  of  his  universe  was  the  fire 
side  where  dwelt  this  daughter  of  the  West.  Rewards 
such  as  no  man  ever  yet  had  been  accorded  by  the 
people  of  the  United  States  were  to  him  as  little  worth 
except  as  valued  and  shared  by  Julia  Dent. 

And  now  there  came  a  year  of  watchfulness  and 
anxiety.  Mexico  had  not  yet  taken  open  offense  at  the 
open  hostility  of  the  southern  half  of  the  bigger  and 
stronger  republic,  but  there  were  reasons  innumerable 
for  knowing  that  war  must  come.  Meantime  our  little 
army  had  to  be  put  in  at  least  partial  readiness. 

So  much  of  it  as  was  camped  in  the  charming  glade 
country  southwest  of  Natchitoches — Camp  Salubrity, 
they  called  it — was  living  in  clover.  The  climate,  the 
country,  the  country  folk  were  all  charming  and  hos 
pitable.  The  troops  drilled  and  lived  and  throve  in  the 
open  air.  In  their  leisure  hours  and  on  rainy  days  the 
officers  sometimes  took  to  cards,  and  Longstreet  tells 
us  that  they  occasionally  quit  the  game — poker  as  then 
practised — quite  concerned  over  the  loss  of  seventy- 
five  cents,  as  well  they  might  be  when  it  represented 
so  large  a  fraction  of  the  subaltern's  daily  stipend. 
They  started  dances  and  dinners  by  way  of  return  for 
the  hospitalities  of  neighboring  planters.  They  essayed 
private  theatricals,  and  there  is  regimental  tradition 
that  because  of  his  slender,  supple  form  and  fair,  smooth 
complexion  and  regular  features,  they  once  cast  young 
Grant  for  the  part  of  Desdemona,  before  they  realized 
that  histrionics  formed  no  part  whatsoever  of  his 
make-up.  Grant,  it  is  remembered,  paid  his  appropriate 
share  in  all  expenses  for  entertainment,  but  otherwise 
had  little  interest  in  them.  It  seems  that  the  winter 
of  44-5  was  to  him  one  of  serious  thought  and  reflec 
tion.  He  spent  long  hours  in  saddle  and  alone,  living 
in  the  sunshine  and  the  open  air,  banishing  thoroughly 

84 


AN  INTERRUPTED  COURTSHIP 

the  last  vestige  of  that  semi-consumptive  cough  that 
had  worried  his  mother  the  year  before.  He  wrote 
long  letters,  he  listened  with  attentive  ears  to  all  the 
debates,  sometimes  heated  and  acrimonious,  as  to  the 
rights  and  wrongs  of  the  questions  at  issue  between  the 
United  States  of  America  and  the  neighboring  republic 
of  Mexico.  The  more  he  heard  the  more  he  became 
convinced  that  Mexico  was  being  drawn  into  a  war 
with  a  stronger  nation,  without  a  vestige  of  right  on 
the  stronger  side — the  side  which,  by  his  oath  of  office 
taken  on  receipt  of  his  commission,  he  was  sworn  to 
maintain  against  all  enemies  or  opposers  whomsoever. 
Consider  now  the  painful  position  in  which  this 
officer  in  particular  was  placed.  The  profession  itself 
was  not  of  his  choosing.  He  had  never  liked  "soldier 
ing,"  as  it  was  called.  He  mastered  with  ease  the  scien 
tific  part  of  his  military  education  but  had  never  be 
come  even  a  moderately  good  drill  officer.  Guard  duty, 
and  the  minor  and  manifold  duties  of  a  subaltern  in 
garrison  such  as  supervising  issue  of  clothing,  attend 
ing  roll-calls,  writing  up  records  of  garrison  courts, 
boards  of  survey,  etc.,  he  had  conscientiously  attended 
to,  but  his  captain  probably  did  most  of  the  drilling; 
Grant  never  considered  that  his  strong  suit.  He  had 
won  the  name  of  being  a  thoroughly  dutiful  subordinate 
but  by  no  means  enthusiastic  officer.  The  story  told  by 
one  of  his  biographers  of  his  having  with  drawn  sword 
threatened  a  lieutenant-colonel  of  his  regiment  sounds 
almost  incredible,  even  though,  as  told,  the  colonel  had 
said,  "  That  isn't  so,"  in  reply  to  a  statement  of  Grant 
that  all  the  men  of  his  company  were  present  except 
those  properly  excused.  It  is  most  improbable  that  a 
young  lieutenant  should  turn  upon  his  superior  and 
threaten  to  run  him  through  unless  instant  retraction 
were  made.  The  articles  of  war  prescribed  that  any 
officer  who  dared  to  lift  a  weapon  against  a  superior  in 
the  discharge  of  his  duty,  should  suffer  death  or  such 

85 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

other  punishment  as  a  court-martial  should  direct,  and 
Grant  was  the  last  man  to  resort  to  violence,  regulations 
or  no  regulations. 

He  even  had  the  courage  to  stand  up  against  the 
"  code  duello,"  then  dominant  in  the  army.  He  utterly 
disapproved  of  the  duel,  and  he  didn't  care  who  knew 
it.  He  held  it  to  be  the  duty  of  an  officer  and  the 
custom  of  a  gentleman  to  govern  his  tongue  and  temper, 
and  if  offense  were  given,  wittingly  or  unwittingly,  then 
to  settle  the  question  by  lawful  and  temperate  means. 
He  was  anything  but  a  soldier  of  the  swash-buckling 
type.  He  was  simply  a  straightforward,  unpretentious, 
duty-doing  subaltern,  neither  brilliant,  military  nor 
showy,  a  man  who  would  hardly  be  chosen  for  the 
position  of  adjutant,  who  could  never  shine  on  parade, 
but,  said  the  regiment,  a  man  sure  to  come  out  strong 
on  campaign  or  in  administration,  a  man  who  would 
obey  orders  and  do  his  level  best. 

And  in  this  they  were  right.  Utterly  disapproving 
the  causes  leading  up  to  the  war,  he  had  determined  to 
stand  by  his  colors  and  his  oath  of  office  at  least  until 
the  stipulated  four  years  had  expired.  Until  that  time, 
like  Decatur,  he  would  say  "  My  country,  right  or 
wrong." 

That  matter  settled,  Grant  went  serenely  on  with 
his  preparations.  He  obtained  in  the  late  spring  of 
'45  another  leave  to  enable  him  to  visit  the  Dent  home 
stead,  and  to  secure  the  until-then  withheld  consent  of 
Dent,  the  father.  In  this  he  was  ably  seconded  by  the 
arguments  of  Dent  the  son,  and  still  more  ably  by  the 
appeals  of  the  wife  and  mother.  It  was  hardly  the 
match  the  old  planter  and  slave-owner  would  have  made 
for  the  eldest  daughter  of  his  house  and  name,  but  if  the 
wife  said  so  and  the  daughter  would  have  it  so,  and 
the  young  man,  though  poor,  was  sound  and  square, 
why,  there  seemed  no  help  for  it.  Meantime,  how 
ever,  Mr.  Dent  was  mightily  interested  in  the  pending 

86 


r 


SKETCH  OF  THE 

GRANT  AND  DEXT  FARMS 

AND  ROADS  TO  ST.  LOUIS 

AND  JEFFERSON 

BARRACKS 

Courtesy  of  Major  J.  1C.  Pitzman 


AN  INTERRUPTED  COURTSHIP 

questions,  in  Southern  and  slave-holding  supremacy, 
and  in  the  success  of  the  scheme  to  acquire  Texas,  no 
matter  what  Mexico  might  think  or  do.  He  and  his 
prospective  son-in-law  were  not  much  in  accord  on 
that  matter.  Possibly  that  had  something  to  do  with 
the  elder's  objections,  but  when  a  year  or  so  later  the 
little  commands  of  Scott  and  Taylor  had  won,  through 
sheer  skill  and  valor  against  desperate  odds,  an  astonish 
ing  series  of  victories,  the  nation  forgot  for  the  time  the 
inciting  cause — forgot  for  the  time,  perhaps  forgot  en 
tirely,  the  fearful  cost  in  young  and  gallant  lives,  and 
went  wild  over  the  heroism  and  daring  displayed  by  the 
nation's  sons.  To  the  Dent  household  there  came  for  a 
time  anxieties  innumerable,  as  the  despatches  told  the 
tale  of  killed  and  wounded,  of  the  Third  and  Fourth 
Infantry  in  the  thick  of  every  fight  and  suffering 
heaviest  losses,  of  the  gallant  fellows  with  whom  the 
girls  had  danced  and  dined  again  and  again,  so  many 
of  whom  had  died  at  the  head  of  the  stormers  or  "  in 
the  lead  of  the  rushing  charge,"  of  their  own  son  and 
brother,  after  manful  share  in  the  fortunes  of  his  new 
regiment  up  to  the  very  walls  of  Mexico,  falling  pain 
fully  wounded  in  the  assault  on  the  Molino ;  and  then, 
but  never  in  word  or  letter  of  his  own,  of  the  daring 
exploits,  the  consummate  skill  and  judgment  that  had 
distinguished  the  young  suitor  soldier  who  was  presently 
to  return  to  them  with  honors  unexcelled  by  any  other 
of  his  grade,  a  record  won  without  a  scratch  and  yet 
without  a  stain.  Verily,  thought  the  elder  Dent,  if 
Grant  can  do  all  this  in  a  profession  he  hates,  what  can 
not  he  do  in  one  that  he  loves? 

There  was  no  longer  obstacle  to  naming  the  day. 
As  lover,  as  husband  and  as  father  we  are  to  see  him 
through  many  a  year.  Let  us  see  him  through  the 
first  of  his  many  campaigns. 


CHAPTER  IX 
THE  WAR  WITH  MEXICO 

BY  joint  resolution  the  Houses  of  Congress,  in 
March,  1845,  decreed  the  annexation  of  Texas,  and 
the  President  lost  little  time  in  ordering  an  "  Army 
of  Occupation  "  to  the  newly  acquired  territory.  The 
fighting  land  force  of  the  nation  at  the  moment  con 
sisted  of  perhaps  eight  thousand  soldiers,  divided  into 
eight  regiments  of  infantry,  two  of  dragoons,  one  of 
rifles  and  four  of  artillery,  a  certain  few  selected  com 
panies  of  the  latter  being  equipped  for  field  service, 
among  them  the  famous  batteries  of  Bragg,  Duncan  and 
Frank  Taylor,  while  the  rest  were  armed  and  used  as 
infantry.  In  point  of  numbers  it  was  pitifully  small, 
but  in  point  of  officers,  especially  in  captains  and  lieu 
tenants,  no  army  in  the  world  could  match  it.  For 
thirty  years  the  graduates  of  West  Point  had  been  com 
ing  annually  into  the  line  in  little  groups  of  two  or  three 
to  each  regiment,  until  in  '45  almost  every  company, 
troop  or  battery  took  the  field,  officered  by  highly 
trained  and  most  efficient  men. 

Except  for  the  brief  and  bitter  struggle  with  the 
Seminoles  of  Florida,  and  the  Creeks  and  kindred 
tribes  of  Alabama,  there  had  been  no  war  since  the 
memorable  conflict  of  1812,  wherein  our  land  forces, 
at  least,  had  suffered  many  a  defeat.  Now  the  puny 
army  of  regulars,  aided  by  such  volunteers  as  could 
be  hurriedly  organized,  was  to  be  pitted  against  the 
armed  forces  of  Mexico — numerous  if  not  otherwise 
formidable.  It  was  practically  to  be  West  Point's  first 
essay  in  battle  against  a  civilized  foe,  and  as  all  the 
army  knew,  West  Point  was  on  its  mettle. 

The  senior  officers — the  generals,  colonels  and  even 
88 


THE  WAR  WITH  MEXICO 

many  lieutenant-colonels  and  majors — were  of  the  "  old 
regime,"  commissioned  originally  long  before  the  Mili 
tary  Academy  was  old  enough  to  graduate  more  than 
half  a  dozen  cadets  a  year.  As  a  rule  they  were  stanch 
and  battle-tried.  Famous  names  were  among  them, 
notably  those  of  Winfield  Scott,  Zachary  Taylor,  and 
the  colonel  of  the  Eighth  Infantry,  the  "  electric  "  com 
mandant  of  twenty  years  before,  William  J.  Worth. 
Oddly  enough,  the  President  and  his  cabinet  would 
gladly  have  had  all  of  them  "  shelved  "  and  out  of  the 
way,  for  though  Scott  and  Taylor  were  of  Southern 
birth,  neither  was  believed  to  be  in  sympathy  with  this 
exclusively  Southern  enterprise.  It  is  a  matter  of  his 
tory  that  the  President  strove  hard  to  supersede  them 
by  a  general  of  his  own  creation  and  from  civil  life.  If 
President  Polk  could  have  induced  Congress  to  sustain 
him,  Thomas  H.  Benton,  of  Missouri,  would  have  been 
sent  to  the  Rio  Grande,  with  the  commission  of  a  lieu 
tenant-general,  and  orders  to  take  supreme  command. 
But  the  scheme  fell  through  of  its  own  weight ;  old 
"  Rough  and  Ready  "  had  "  taken  hold  "  as  it  were,  in  a 
way  that  electrified  even  the  reluctant  North,  and  after 
the  brilliant  little  victories  of  Palo  Alto  and  Resaca  de 
la  Palma,  any  attempt  to  overslaugh  Taylor  would 
have  stirred  the  people  and  swamped  the  administration. 

Shrewdly  advised,  the  President  left  to  General 
Scott,  a  natural  rival,  the  effort  to  clip  the  wings  of 
Taylor's  popularity;  but,  in  this  effort  to  put  a  damper 
on  the  national  proclivity  for  choosing  a  military  hero 
for  the  presidency,  the  administration  that  strove  to 
block  the  candidacy  of  one  general  succeeded  only  in 
securing  it  to  two. 

To  return  to  the  Army  of  Occupation.  Among  the 
regimental  commanders,  it  must  be  said  that  there  were 
several  who  were  unequal  to  the  task  before  them, 
notably  the  colonel  of  Grant's  own  regiment,  who  had 
long  contented  himself  with  looking  on  at  the  evolutions 

89 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

of  the  battalion,  and  not  until  it  was  learned  at  Jackson 
Barracks  that  they  were  actually  destined  for  service, 
did  the  old  gentleman  buckle  on  his  sword  and  attempt 
in  person  to  command  at  drill.  The  effort  was  too  much 
for  him — he  turned  and  dropped  dead  as  he  left  the 
parade  ground.  This  was  not  the  only  tragedy  that  be 
fell  the  Fourth  before  the  campaign  began.  Two  of  its 
promising  young  officers,  "  graduates  "  both  and  senior 
to  Grant  by  two  or  three  years,  were  instantly  killed  by 
the  explosion  of  the  boiler  of  the  steamer  Dayton  in 
Aransas  Bay.  One  other,  senior  to  both  of  these,  had 
fallen  by  the  wayside  at  Camp  Salubrity,  and  after 
a  fair  trial  by  his  brother  officers  had  been  summarily 
dismissed.  The  Fourth  took  the  field  with  the  shadow 
of  these  regimental  sorrows  still  overhanging,  but  they 
had  long  months  in  which  to  recuperate,  a  fine,  health 
ful  sea  front  on  which  to  camp,  with  abundant  room  for 
even  brigade  evolutions,  with  a  capital  beach,  surf- 
bathing  and  fishing.  The  Fourth  had,  moreover,  a  com 
mander  in  whom  they  felt  confidence,  and  a  new  ad 
jutant  by  whom  they  swore,  "  Charley "  Hoskins,  of 
the  Class  of  '36 — one  of  the  most  gifted  and  soldierly 
of  their  number.  They  had  many  a  distinguished  West 
Pointer  among  their  captains — McCall,  of  the  Class  of 
'22,  Bliss,  Alvord  and  Scott,  of  the  Class  of  '33  (Bliss 
and  Scott  serving  as  aides-de-camp  to  Taylor  and  Scott 
respectively)  and  Henry  Prince,  of  '35.  Among  their 
junior  officers  were  Dick  Graham,  of  '38,  Warren  of 
'40,  Hill  and  Norton  of  '42,  though  the  latter  was  away 
at  West  Point  as  instructor  of  tactics,  Beaman  and 
Perry,  of  the  same  class,  Augur,  Grant,  Judah  and 
Hazlitt,  of  '43,  Woods  and  Alexander  Hayes,  of  '44, 
Lincoln,  Montgomery,  Richey  and  D.  A.  Russell,  of  '45. 
Later  in  the  fall  of  '46  they  were  joined  by  Wilkins 
and  Rodgers. 

It  was  a  gallant  array,  horse,  foot  and  dragoons, 
that  set  forth  under  Zachary  Taylor  early  in  March, 

90 


THE  WAR  WITH  MEXICO 

'46,  and  took  the  road  from  Corpus  Christ!  southward 
along  the  sandy  coast  to  the  mouth  of  the  Rio  Grande. 
It  was  known  that  a  Mexican  force,  at  least  double 
theirs  in  number,  interposed  between  them  and  Mata- 
moras,  when  in  May  the  little  army  turned  confidently 
northward,  old  "  Rough  and  Ready  "  leading  on.  He 
had  but  six  regiments,  and  a  squadron  or  two  of 
dragoons,  but  his  guns  and  gunners  were  not  to  be 
excelled,  and  the  martial  spirit  of  that  model  command 
was  hardly  to  be  equalled.  The  fire  and  fury  of  their 
attack,  the  impetuous  rush  of  their  charge,  amazed  and 
confounded  the  slow-moving  brigades  of  the  Mexican 
line,  and  settled  for  all  time  the  Mexican  question  on 
Texas  soil. 

Fought  on  May  8th  and  9th  respectively,  the  little 
battles  of  Palo  Alto  and  Resaca  sent  the  enemy  scatter 
ing  back  across  the  Rio  Grande  in  utter  bewilderment 
and  dismay.  They  had  swept  the  level  fields  with  con 
centrated  fire  from  their  many  guns.  They  had  poured 
swift  volleys  from  musket  and  escopeta  into  the  charg 
ing,  cheering  ranks  of  blue  without  stopping  them  at  a 
single  point.  They  never  knew  until  long  afterward 
how  severe  a  loss  they  really  had  inflicted. 

In  those  spirited  affairs  our  friends  of  the  Fourth 
bore  their  share  and  received  their  due  meed  of  credit. 
Palo  Alto  was  mainly  an  artillery  fight,  and  the  Fourth, 
though  itching  to  get  at  the  enemy's  guns,  were  com 
pelled  to  wait  until  the  following  day.  There  is  noth 
ing  that  tries  more  severely  the  mettle  and  discipline  of 
infantry  or  cavalry  than  this  duty  of  "  supporting " 
artillery,  of  sitting  in  saddle  or  standing  in  ranks  in 
readiness  to  repel  a  dash  at  the  guns,  receiving  heavy 
fire,  yet  unable  to  reply.  From  his  station  as  file  closer 
to  Captain  McCall's  Company,  it  was  the  lot  of  Lieu 
tenant  Grant  to  see  more  than  one  huge  gap  torn 
through  the  line  as  the  round  shot  came  screaming  from 
the  smoke  clouds  a  few  hundred  yards  away.  One  in 

91 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

particular  struck  off  the  head  of  a  soldier  only  a  few 
paces  away,  stretched  Captain  Page  mortally  wounded, 
and  blinded  Lieutenant  Wallen  with  their  blood.  Palo 
Alto  tried  the  nerve  of  the  Fourth  and  found  it  tense 
and  true,  but  it  was  Resaca  that  gave  the  regiment  the 
chance  it  longed  for. 

Here  Captain  McCall  was  detailed  to  conduct  the 
skirmish  line  in  the  opening  attack,  and  it  fell  to  the 
lot  of  our  second  lieutenant  to  step  to  the  front  and 
command  the  company.  Quiet  and  unassuming  as 
ever  but,  as  the  veteran  soldiers  did  not  fail  to  note,  ab 
solutely  calm  and  collected,  their  junior  subaltern  stood 
before  them  as  their  commander.  In  his  own  Memoirs 
he  says  the  experience  was  anything  but  enjoyable.  He 
gives  the  reader  to  understand  that  he  would  rather 
not  have  been  there,  yet  it  transpired  that  he  led  his 
men  that  day  with  consummate  ease  and  nonchalance, 
even  though  he  had  to  see  a  cherished  comrade  shot 
dead  in  the  thick  of  the  fray.  How  often,  how  very 
often,  that  experience  was  to  be  his.  How  fiercely  the 
lightning  strokes  of  battle  were  to  play  about  his  head, 
blasting  many  a  brave  young  life,  yet  as  God  willed, 
doubtless  for  a  mighty  purpose,  sparing  Grant.  Omit 
ting  all  mention  of  their  seniors  or  of  the  members  of 
other  classes  than  the  seven  with  which  Grant  wore 
the  West  Point  gray,  there  is  no  better  illustration  of 
the  desperate  fighting,  of  the  reckless  daring  and  de 
voted  leadership  of  the  young  graduates  of  the  Academy 
than  is  found  in  the  solemn  roster  of  those  who  died 
in  battle  for  the  honor  of  Alma  Mater  and  The  Flag. 

Of  the  Class  of  1840,  Irwin,  Adjutant  of  the  Third 
Infantry  (as  Hoskins  was  Adjutant  of  the  Fourth), 
was  killed  among  the  foremost  at  Monterey.  Bacon, 
foot  of  the  class,  died  of  the  wounds  received  at  the 
head  of  his  company  at  Churubusco.  Of  this  class,  too, 
was  James  G.  Martin,  who  wore  an  empty  sleeve  from 
the  day  of  Molino.  Of  the  Class  of  '41,  Irons,  Burbank, 
Ernst  and  Morris  died  of  their  wounds,  Irons  at 

92 


THE  WAR  WITH  MEXICO 

Churubusco,  the  other  three  at  Molino.  Berry,  of  the 
Fourth  Infantry,  was  one  of  the  victims  of  the  Dayton's 
explosion.  Gantt,  gallant  fellow,  was  shot  dead  fore 
most  among  the  stormers  at  Chapultepec.  Of  the  Class 
of  '42,  Benjamin  died  at  the  Belen  Gate  (Mansfield 
Lovell,  his  file  leader  in  class  standing,  barely  escaping 
with  his  life),  Mason  and  Hammond  of  the  Dragoons 
were  killed,  one  at  La  Rosia,  the  other  at  San  Pasqual, 
while  Longstreet  carried  to  Grant's  wedding,  two  years 
later,  the  grim  scars  of  Chapultepec. 

Of  their  own  little  band,  graduated  in  '43,  Chad- 
bourne  was  shot  dead  in  the  charge  of  the  Fourth  at 
Resaca.  Stevens,  of  the  Dragoons,  but  a  few  days 
later,  met  his  fate  at  the  crossing  of  the  Rio  Grande. 
Hazlitt  was  killed  at  Monterey,  and  Johnstone,  serv 
ing  his  guns  at  Contreras,  was  struck  by  the  shot  of  an 
eighteen-pounder  and  never  knew  what  hit  him.  Neill, 
as  adjutant  of  the  Second  Dragoons,  and  Dent,  the 
brother-in-law  elect,  were  severely  wounded  and  for  a 
time  incapacitated. 

Of  their  immediate  followers,  the  men  of  '44,  Dil- 
worth,  like  Johnstone,  was  swept  off  by  a  cannon  shot. 
Strong  and  Burwell  died  at  Molino,  and  Wainwright 
from  the  wounds  there  received.  Woods  was  killed 
at  Monterey  and  Smith  (J.  P.)  at  Chapultepec.  Of 
the  Class  of  '45,  well  known  to  the  seniors  in  '43,  Farry 
and  Richey,  mere  boys  of  twenty- two,  were  shot  dead, 
one  at  Monterey,  the  other  bearing  despatches.  Merrill 
met  his  death  by  accident  on  shipboard  in  Aransas  Bay, 
and  Shelling  all  but  died  from  the  wounds  of  Molino. 
Then  came  the  boys  who  were  plebes  when  Grant  and 
his  fellows  were  First  Classmen,  and  among  these  there 
were  two  bearers  of  illustrious  names,  Alex.  Rodgers, 
son  of  Captain  George  Rodgers  of  the  navy,  and  nephew 
of  Commodore  Oliver  H.  Perry,  and  his  next  number  in 
the  class,  Oliver  H.  P.  Taylor.  There  was  bitter  sorrow 
the  woeful  evening  of  Chapultepec.  The  stars  and 
stripes  were  floating  in  triumph  over  the  battered  walls, 

93 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

but  the  dead  lay  thick  below,  and  among  them  "  Sandy  " 
Rodgers,  only  twenty-one,  he  who  but  a  few  days  be 
fore  grieved  so  sadly  over  Eastley's  death  at  Churu- 
busco.  Taylor  lived,  unscathed  by  Mexican  blade  or 
bullet,  only  to  die  leading  his  Dragoons  in  Indian  bat 
tle  long  years  later. 

These,  be  it  remembered,  are  but  the  fatalities 
among  Grant's  intimates  and  contemporaries.  The  list 
of  those  of  other  classes  who  fell  in  that  fateful  war 
far  exceeds  in  number  those  mentioned  here.  And  there 
were  others,  too,  commissioned  from  civil  life,  yet  close 
to  Grant — Captains  Page  and  Hanson,  of  the  Fourth 
Infantry,  Sydney  Smith,  the  wit  of  the  regiment,  whose 
merry  sayings  made  joyous  many  an  hour  for  Grant, 
and  whose  lamented  death  within  the  walls  of  Mexico 
made  him  a  first  lieutenant. 

It  has  been  pointed  out  by  military  historians  that 
in  no  previous  war  was  the  loss  of  officers,  in  propor 
tion  to  the  numbers  engaged,  ever  so  great. 

The  casualties  in  Scott's  column  alone,  from  Cerro 
Gordo  to  Chapultepec  speak  eloquently  as  to  this. 
Thirty-three  officers  had  been  killed  and  one  hundred 
and  seventy-nine  wounded.  Three  hundred  and  fifty 
men  had  been  killed  and  two  thousand  one  hundred  and 
seventy-two  wounded,  and  all  this  out  of  a  force  at  no 
time  exceeding  eight  thousand  men. 

And  yet,  it  has  pleased  a  prominent  captain  of  in 
dustry,  in  his  address  to  the  Peace  Societies  of  St.  Louis 
in  April,  1913,  to  refer  to  these  engagements  as  a  series 
of  mere  skirmishes.  It  is  recorded  of  the  same  speaker 
that  he  further  declared  the  profession  of  the  officer  of 
the  army  and  navy  of  the  United  States  to  be  about  the 
least  hazardous  occupation  within  the  scope  of  his 
knowledge.  The  records  of  the  great  Civil  War,  the  list 
of  our  fallen  in  Indian  battle  in  the  ten  years  of  pro 
found  peace  that  followed,  the  number  of  our  dead  in 
Cuba  and  the  Philippines  must  therefore  have  been  un 
worthy  the  financier's  notice. 


CHAPTER  X 
A  FIGHTING  QUARTERMASTER 

ON  the  road  to  Monterey  Grant  found  himself  again 
in  saddle,  and  for  the  first  time  detached  from  his  com 
pany  in  the  responsible  position  of  regimental  quarter 
master.  In  these  days  only  captains,  men  of  several 
years  of  experience,  are  selected  for  such  duty,  but  in 
'46  a  colonel  could  pitch  upon  any  one  of  his  subalterns 
for  staff  service.  The  two  coveted  offices  were  those  of 
adjutant  and  quartermaster,  and  as  a  rule  they  fell  to 
senior  lieutenants.  Charles  Hoskins,  of  the  class  of 
'36,  as  has  been  said,  now  held  the  adjutancy,  but  there 
was  no  surprise  in  the  Fourth  when  it  was  announced 
that  "  Sam  "  Grant  was  slated  for  the  quartermaster- 
ship. 

There  were  reasons  why  the  detail  should  have 
been  a  source  of  satisfaction.  He  was  only  three  years 
out  of  West  Point,  therefore  it  was  an  unusual  com 
pliment.  He  was  one  of  the  outspoken  opponents  of 
the  war  itself,  and  therefore  might  have  welcomed  a 
berth  which  promised  to  keep  him  well  to  the  rear,  and 
out  of  the  hard  knocks  and  fighting  at  the  front.  More 
over,  his  well-known  gift  for  managing  horses,  it 
presently  transpired,  extended  also  to  mules  and  even  to 
men.  The  hired  teamsters  were  a  quarrelsome,  turbu 
lent  lot;  the  mules  lost  nothing  of  their  native  propen 
sities  through  daily  association  with  such  characters. 
Those  were  the  days  of  the  knock-down-and-drag-out 
methods  of  discipline.  The  little  army  of  old  "  Rough 
and  Ready  "  had  about  as  many  hard  characters  among 
its  camp  followers  as  any  that  ever  took  the  field.  That 
oft-mentioned  array  of  military  experts,  "  Our  Army  in 
Flanders,"  had  no  such  mules  as  these  of  our  Army 

95 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

in  Mexico,  and  the  rank  profanity  that  prevailed  in 
both  became  something  more  than  famous  in  the  latter. 
The  roads  and  the  language  alike  were  something  in 
famous.  It  had  been  a  creed  in  the  quartermaster's 
department  that  no  mule  could  be  induced  to  throw  his 
heart  into  the  work  except  under  the  influence  of  lurid 
and  resonant  blasphemy.  It  became  noised  abroad  by 
the  time  they  cut  loose  from  Camargo  that  the  Fourth 
Foot  had  a  new  quartermaster  who  could  "  snatch  a 
six-mule  team  out  of  the  worst  kind  of  a  slough  with 
out  so  much  as  a  swear  word."  The  thing  was  in 
credible,  yet  it  was  true.  The  mild-mannered,  taciturn 
young  man  who  rode  a  Texas  pony  with  such  negligent 
ease,  proved  able  to  deal  with  hitherto  intractable  mule 
teams  in  a  way  no  veteran  could  fathom.  By  the  time 
that  compact  little  column  of  regulars  was  trudging 
into  sight  of  Monterey,  Garland's  brigade  was  bragging 
about  the  way  "  Sam  "  Grant  had  straightened  out  every 
mule  and  man  in  the  train  of  the  Fourth.  His  wagons 
were  never  stalled  or  sidetracked.  Grant  had  a  way  of 
his  own  of  putting  them  through,  a  way  that  lasted  him 
throughout  other  years  of  campaigning  in  days  that 
were  to  come.  "  He  was  the  most  popular  quarter 
master  in  Taylor's  whole  column,"  said  an  appreciative 
officer  of  the  envious  Fifth,  a  few  years  later.  All  this 
therefore  should  have  made  Grant  reasonably  content 
with  his  new  lot. 

But  Monterey  and  other  battles  proved  that  he  was 
not,  and  "  the  most  efficient  quartermaster  in  the 
column  "  was  begging  to  be  relieved  from  a  duty  that 
kept  him  from  sharing  the  fortunes  of  his  company. 
The  man  who  hated  soldiering  and  detested  war  in 
general,  and  this  one  in  particular,  was  demanding  that 
he  be  allowed  to  quit  his  trains  in  order  to  take  his  part 
in  the  fight. 

Monterey  brought  matters  to  a  climax.  The  story 
of  the  spirited  battling  about  its  walls  has  been  told  ten 

96 


A  FIGHTING  QUARTERMASTER 

thousand  times  over,  and  we  have  to  deal  only  with 
Grant  and  his  part  therein.  Three  miles  to  the  rear 
the  trains  had  been  parked  while  the  battalions  went 
striding  into  action,  and  presently  the  thunder  of  the 
cannon  told  the  story  of  sharp  and  fierce  encounter.  It 
was  too  much  for  the  quartermaster  of  the  Fourth. 
His  own  regiment,  beloved  by  this  time  in  spite  of  his 
pacific  tendencies,  was  supporting  those  guns  some 
where  among  the  outlying  farm  enclosures  toward  Fort 
Teneria.  Putting  spurs  to  his  horse,  Grant  left  his 
wagons  and  property  to  the  care  of  the  teamsters  and 
galloped  in  pursuit,  joining  just  in  time  for  their  daring 
charge. 

Hard  by  the  roadside  and  among  the  groups  of 
wounded  on  the  following  day  he  found  his  senior  staff 
officer,  unhorsed  and  in  sore  trouble.  Orders  to  be 
carried  at  once  and  not  a  mount  to  be  had.  "  Take 
mine,"  said  Grant,  springing  from  saddle,  "  I'll  find 
another,"  and  away  went  Hoskins  in  the  wake  of  the 
smoke-shrouded  line,  the  last  Grant  ever  saw  of  him 
alive.  Hoskins  fell,  shot  dead  among  the  stormers. 
"  You'll  have  to  act  as  adjutant,  too,  Grant,"  sadly 
said  their  chief  that  night,  but  by  that  time  "  Sam  " 
Grant  was  something  more  than  a  double  staff  officer 
in  the  eyes  of  Garland's  brigade.  With  another  day 
the  whole  division  was  telling  or  hearing  the  story. 
After  hours  of  hard  fighting,  the  Third  and  Fourth  were 
close  under  walls  that  were  lined  with  the  enemy.  They 
could  go  no  further,  for  cartridge  boxes  were  almost 
empty.  They  could  not  go  back  even  if  go  they  would, 
for  the  open  ground  was  swept  by  the  enemy's  fire  and 
it  was  death  to  attempt  it,  yet  Garland  called  for  a 
volunteer.  Some  one  had  to  make  the  hazardous  essay 
— the  trip  to  the  ammunition  wagons — and  that  some 
one  was  Grant.  Somehow,  somewhere  he  had  picked 
up  another  mount  and  speedily  made  himself  master. 
Somehow  he  had  managed  to  bring  that  horse  along 
7  97 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

and  had  him  screened  behind  a  shoulder  of  wall.  There 
was  no  question  in  Grant's  mind  as  to  the  need  of 
cartridges  or  the  method  of  getting  them.  Silently 
he  tightened  the  girth,  quickly  he  mounted,  headed  the 
excited  beast  for  the  rear,  gave  him  rein,  lash  and  spur, 
and  as  he  darted  away  for  the  white  wagon  tops,  Grant 
flung  himself  out  of  saddle,  crooking  a  leg  about  the 
cantle  and  clasping  an  arm  over  the  neck,  and  thus, 
Indian  fashion,  at  full  tilt,  with  his  horse  as  a  shield, 
he  drove  through  the  sputter  of  musketry  and  safely 
reached  the  train.  Within  the  hour  Garland's  brigade 
was  resupplied,  thanks  to  the  daring  and  skill  of  their 
quartermaster.  Within  the  week  the  story  of  that  ex 
ploit  had  gone  throughout  the  little  army,  and  when 
"  Sam  "  Grant  penned  his  appeal  for  permission  to  re 
join  his  company,  Lieutenant-Colonel  Garland  saw  fit 
to  reply  that  his  services  on  the  staff  were  too  valuable 
to  be  spared.  It  led  to  Grant's  writing  about  the  nearest 
approach  to  insubordination  that  ever  flowed  from  his 
pen — "  I  must  and  will  accompany  my  company  in  bat 
tle,"  and  followed  the  words  with  the  information  that 
if  not  permitted  to  do  so  he  would  quit  the  service 
entirely. 

That  exploit  of  Grant's  should  have  brought  him  his 
first  brevet,  but  the  army  had  just  emerged  from  an 
absurd  squabble  growing  out  of  claims  for  precedence 
because  of  brevet  rank — claims  so  inimical  to  the  views 
of  most  of  the  officers  of  Taylor's  command,  that  no 
less  than  one  hundred  and  thirty  signatures  were  at 
tached  to  the  appeal,  written  by  Colonel  Hitchcock  and 
sent  direct  to  the  Senate. 

Loyally  did  his  officers,  West  Pointers  and  all,  stand 
by  old  "  Rough  and  Ready  "  in  this  his  first  clash  with 
his  senior,  Scott,  and  great  was  the  wrath  of  the  latter 
when  for  the  second  time  within  three  years  he  found 
his  rulings  attacked  by  an  officer  so  many  years  his 
junior.  It  was  gall  and  wormwood  to  one  of  Scott's 

98 


A  FIGHTING  QUARTERMASTER 

imperious  nature  to  be  opposed  by  his  subordinate,  but 
"  that  pestilent  penman,"  as  the  big,  brave,  but  self- 
opinionated  chief  referred  to  Hitchcock,  won  out  for 
the  second  time,  and  Taylor  was  sustained. 

Naturally  now  there  was  some  reluctance  on  Tay 
lor's  part  to  suggest  brevet  rank  as  a  reward  for  the 
exploits  of  his  officers.  Scott  had  "  overworked  the 
brevet  business  "  in  the  past  and  was  destined  in  the 
near  future  to  overwork  it  again.  Many  an  act  of 
daring  and  devotion  therefore  went  utterly  unrewarded 
in  Taylor's  little  army.  Among  the  most  gallant  and 
distinguished  of  his  volunteers,  by  the  way,  was  no  less 
a  personage  than  Lieutenant-Colonel  Hamer,  Grant's 
former  congressman. 

Meantime,  however,  even  the  Northwest  went  wild 
over  the  tidings  of  Taylor's  victory,  and  even  in  its 
hour  of  congratulation  the  administration  at  Washing 
ton  took  alarm.  A  Whig  general  was  winning  the 
laurels  of  the  war  devised  by  and  for  the  opposite 
political  party.  The  joy  bells  were  ringing  all  over  the 
land.  The  name  of  old  "  Rough  and  Ready  "  was  on 
every  lip.  The  stirring,  soldierly,  yet  modest  and  model 
report  of  the  battle,  signed  Z.  Taylor,  was  in  every 
paper  and  on  every  tongue.  Every  word  of  it,  of  course, 
was  penned  by  Bliss.  North  and  South  the  bluff 
frontier  leader  had  become  the  personal  hero  and  politi 
cal  probability.  Something  had  to  be  done  to  check 
his  onward  sweep  to  undesired  victories,  and  then  it 
was  that  Scott  received  his  orders  to  proceed  in  person 
to  the  seat  of  war. 

And  presently  he  came.  It  was  mid  December  when 
Scott  left  New  Orleans  for  Brazos  Santiago,  and  one 
of  the  first  things  he  did — for  he  was  fully  conscious 
of  enmity  and  intrigue  at  Washington — was  to  strengthen 
his  position  with  the  army  itself  by  summoning  to  his 
staff  some  of  its  ablest  officers.  Scott's  sagacity  was 
never  more  apparent  than  when,  to  the  amaze  of  Colo- 

99 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

nel  Hitchcock,  he  sent  for  that  "  pestilent  penman," 
loaded  him  with  compliments  and  made  him  inspector- 
general  at  headquarters  in  the  field. 

About  the  next  thing  done  was  to  issue  orders  check 
ing  Taylor's  onward  move  from  Monterey  and  taking 
from  him  the  very  flower  of  his  regulars.  Unwillingly 
they  inarched  away,  our  friends  of  the  Third  and 
Fourth  still  in  Garland's  brigade,  and  with  no  little 
anxiety  (  for  Santa  Ana,  with  over  twenty-five  thousand 
men,  was  reported  advancing  on  Taylor  by  way  of 
Saltillo)  they  left  old  "  Rough  and  Ready  "  to  what 
many  feared  might  be  his  fate. 

And  their  fears  were  prophetic,  though  not  exactly 
as  they  feared.  Shorn  of  his  right  arm,  Worth's  regu 
lars,  and  having  with  him  only  the  batteries  of  Bragg, 
Sherman  and  Washington,  the  Dragoons,  and  then  the 
gallant  regiments  of  volunteers,  Taylor  had  dared  to 
face  the  overwhelming  force  of  the  Mexican  leader  and 
to  overthrow  and  soundly  thrash  him  at  Buena  Vista. 
That  magnetic  triumph,  with  its  catch  words  of  "A 
little  more  grape,  Captain  Bragg"  (which  probably 
were  never  spoken)  and  "  Tell  him  to  go  to  hell :  put 
that  in  Spanish,  Bliss  "  (which  undoubtedly  were),  made 
Zachary  Taylor  at  the  very  next  election  President  of 
the  United  States. 

Scott,  sailing  for  Vera  Cruz  and  San  Juan  de  Ulloa, 
received  the  news  of  this  astonishing  victory  and 
realized  that  now  the  race  was  won.  Yet  a  brilliant 
campaign,  and  a  series  of  brilliant  and  stirring  battles 
were  destined  to  be  his  own.  The  siege  of  the  old 
Mexican  seaport  and  the  reduction  of  its  famous  castle 
were  swiftly  followed  by  a  successful  march  with 
barely  eight  thousand  men  into  the  very  heart  of  the 
enemy's  country.  Cerro  Gordo,  fought  in  the  thick  of 
the  mountains  on  the  way,  was  a  finely  planned  tactical 
battle,  a  success  accomplished  without  storming  walls 
or  tragic  loss  of  life.  The  Third  and  Fourth  Infantry 

100 


A  FIGHTING  QUARTERMASTER 

were  still  sore  hearted  over  the  heavy  toll  taken  frorfi 
their  commissioned  list  at  Monterey,  and  Scott  nursed 
his  regulars  along  to  the  beautiful  valley  beyond  the  old 
Orizaba  range,  and  here  finally,  on  the  high  and  health 
ful  tableland  about  Puebla,  with  the  grand  mountain 
chains  to  east  and  west  in  full  view,  with  pure  air  and 
water  and  unclouded  skies,  he  placed  his  little  army  in 
camp,  awaiting  the  arrival  from  the  States  of  the  needed 
reinforcements.  It  was  a  long  wait.  It  might  have  been 
a  most  dangerous  wait,  had  there  been  unity  in  Mexico, 
but  the  populace  and  the  army  were  broken  by  cliques 
and  dissensions.  They  were  quarrelling  among  them 
selves  and  Scott  took  advantage  of  the  situation  to  set 
his  army  to  serious  work  in  brigade  and  battalion  drills. 
Week  after  week  he  had  them  out  long  hours  each  day, 
drilling,  drilling,  hardening  and  steadying,  until  as  the 
summer  waned,  and  the  new  levies  finally  came,  he 
found  himself  again  at  the  head  of  eight  thousand  men, 
most  of  them  seasoned,  disciplined,  splendidly  officered, 
and  in  spite  of  the  few  recruits  and  the  many  hard 
characters  among  them,  ready  to  follow  him  and  to  fight 
like  game  cocks  wherever  he  should  lead.  Then  once 
more  he  launched  them  forward,  now  destined  for  "  the 
halls  of  the  Montezumas." 

In  four  fine  divisions  and  in  capital  fettle,  Scott's 
army  resumed  its  march  on  Mexico,  leaving  the  snow 
capped  height  of  Orizaba  far  to  the  rear,  and  the 
glistening  cone  of  Popocatapetl  to  the  south — the  left 
flank  of  the  column.  The  landscape  was  beautiful,  the 
weather  was  fine,  the  enemy  were  everywhere  about 
them,  but  nowhere  too  near;  there  was  promise  of  stir 
ring  adventure  ahead,  so  in  buoyant  spirits  our  friends, 
still  with  Worth's  famous  division,  trudged  away, 
"  Sam  "  Grant  disgustedly  bringing  up  the  rear  and  the 
train  of  the  Fourth  Foot.  With  a  battery  of  what  was 
then  poetically  referred  to  as  "  flying  artillery  "  attached 
to  each  brigade,  Duncan's  renowned  gunners  grinning 

101 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

in  the  dust  of  Garland's,  with  the  Engineer  officers  and 
the  Dragoons  far  in  the  lead,  and  the  divisions  in  easy 
supporting  distance  in  case  of  attack,  the  little  army 
pressed  forward  through  the  range,  and  presently  de 
bouched  upon  the  plain  of  Mexico.  Far  to  the  front, 
across  long  sweeps  of  lowland  dotted  with  glistening 
lakes,  could  be  dimly  seen  the  towers  of  the  capital 
city,  the  centre  of  an  encircling  frame  of  rolling  hills. 
Approaching  it  as  they  did  from  the  southeast,  until 
the  head  of  column  halted  near  the  hamlet  of  Ayotla, 
the  Engineers  could  see  that  the  direct  road  was  borne 
onward  to  the  gates  only  along  a  narrow  causeway 
flanked  by  marsh,  wet  meadow  and  then  by  lakes ; 
guarded,  too,  and  squarely  in  their  front  by  the  rocky 
height  of  El  Penon,  strongly  fortified  and  bristling  with 
guns.  Cortez  and  his  mailed  horsemen  had  fought  their 
way  against  throngs  of  hapless  natives  who  were  armed 
only  with  bow  and  spear,  but  now  the  causeways  were 
commanded  by  heavy  cannon.  Passage  from  the  south 
east  was  impossible,  and  the  skilled  and  gifted  guides 
of  the  army  turned  their  eyes  westward  to  where  Lake 
Chalco  lapped  the  foothills  of  the  southward  range. 
The  tall,  courtly,  dark-eyed  Virginian,  bred  to  the 
purple,  Scott's  right  arm  among  the  brilliant  group  of 
star  graduates  of  the  Academy,  riding  back  from  the 
Ayotla  front  to  reconnoitre  the  southern  shores  of 
Chalco,  stopped  to  bait  his  horse  among  the  wagons 
of  Garland's  brigade,  and  to  exchange  greeting  with  the 
slender,  blue-eyed,  plain-spoken  son  of  the  people  there 
in  charge.  Fourteen  years  lay  between  them  in  date 
of  graduation — the  former  was  by  that  time  a  senior 
captain  in  the  Corps  of  Engineers,  the  latter  a  junior 
subaltern  in  the  marching  line,  yet  as  the  two  sat  in 
saddle  a  moment  later,  and  parted  at  the  roadside,  two 
finer  horsemen  were  hardly  to  be  found  in  all  that 
array.  Grant,  as  we  know,  has  owned  that  in  West 
Point  days  he  dreamed  he  might  succeed  to  the  rank 

102 


A  FIGHTING  QUARTERMASTER 

and  title  of  General  Scott.  Did  he  dream  that  August 
morning  as  he  gazed  after  the  cavalier  knight  of  the 
army — the  honored  and  envied  engineer  to  whom, 
more  than  to  any  other  (bar  only  himself),  Scott  at 
tributed  the  victory  of  Vera  Cruz,  the  triumph  of 
Cerro  Gordo — that  the  day  was  to  come  at  the  close 
of  four  years  of  tremendous  battling  when  he  who 
bore  so  gracefully  the  high  honors  of  the  Mexican  cam 
paign  should  ride  again  into  his  presence,  superb  even 
in  utter  defeat,  to  tender  to  him,  the  farm  boy  of  Ohio, 
the  surrender  of  all  that  was  left  of  the  proudest, 
bravest,  most  devoted  army  that  ever  yielded  to  fate  and 
to  superior  numbers? 


CHAPTER  XI 
THE  SOLDIER  OF  SAN  COSME 

WITHIN  that  week,  leaving  but  a  puny  force  on  the 
Puebla  road,  Scott's  army  was  skirting  the  lower  shores 
of  Chalco,  bent  on  forcing  a  way  through  the  open 
fields,  the  outlying  villages,  farms  and  haciendas  that 
lay  to  the  southwest  and  west  of  the  capital  city.  Again 
the  Engineers  and  the  escorting  Dragoons  were  out  in 
the  lead.  Again  gallant  Captain  Thornton,  command 
ing  here  as  on  the  Rio  Grande  the  foremost  troop,  was 
reported  killed,  and  this  time  unhappily  it  was  true. 
He  fell,  first  victim  of  the  guns  of  San  Antonio. 

And  foremost  of  the  divisions  marched  the  famous 
regulars.  The  Third  and  Fourth  Infantry,  long  part 
ners  in  camp  and  garrison,  in  march  and  battle,  had 
suffered  divorce,  the  former  having  been  transferred  to 
Persifer  Smith's  brigade  of  Twiggs'  division,  the  latter, 
brigaded  with  the  Second  and  Third  Artillery,  was 
still  under  its  old  chief,  Garland.  In  the  Second 
Brigade,  Colonel  Clarke's,  were  the  Fifth,  Sixth  and 
Eighth  Infantry,  all  of  Worth's  division.  One  division, 
the  Third,  under  Major  General  Pillow,  of  the  Volun 
teers,  was  made  up  of  what  might  be  termed  untried 
men,  even  though  heralded  as  "  regulars  " — the  Vol- 
tigeurs,  the  Ninth,  Eleventh,  Twelfth,  Fourteenth  and 
Fifteenth  Infantry,  only  just  organized  and  destined  to 
exist  only  to  the  end  of  the  war.  Quitman's,  the  Fourth 
Division,  except  for  the  detachment  of  Marines,  was 
composed  entirely  of  New  York,  Pennsylvania  and 
South  Carolina  Volunteers,  brigaded  under  Shields  and 
Watson. 

It  was  on  the  7th  of  August  that  the  little  army  be 
gan  its  march  from  Puebla.  It  was  the  roth  of  August 

104 


THE  SOLDIER  OF  SAN  COSME 

when  it  crossed  the  divide,  eleven  thousand  feet  above 
the  sea,  and  began  its  swoop  upon  the  capital.  It  was  a 
week  thereafter  before  the  actual  battling  occurred  to 
the  south  and  west  of  Chalco.  But  now  the  armed  forces 
of  Mexico  were  treated  to  some  astonishing  moves  and 
methods. 

They  had  strongly  fortified  the  roads  and  approaches 
between  Chalco  and  the  westward  hills.  They  had 
loop-holed  and  sandbagged  the  walls  of  San  Antonio, 
as  well  as  strengthened  the  rocky  fortress  of  Contreras 
to  the  southwest.  In  the  natural  order  of  things  the 
invaders  should  first  assault  the  foremost  line,  leaving 
Contreras  to  be  cared  for  later.  Scott  did  just  the 
opposite.  Directing  Worth's  division  to  threaten  San 
Antonio  from  the  front,  he  slipped  half  his  force  under 
the  cover  of  darkness  through  a  new,  night-built  road 
his  Engineers  had  traced  around  the  southern  flank  of 
the  Mexican  line,  and  just  at  dawn  of  the  2Oth,  in 
twenty  minutes  of  furious  fighting,  they  had  swept  over 
Contreras  and  were  bearing  down  from  the  heights  upon 
the  approaches  to  the  strongest  position  of  all — 
Churubusco  on  the  southern  causeway — the  key  to  the 
city  gates. 

And  here  followed  almost  at  once  the  headiest, 
heaviest  battle  on  the  plains  of  Mexico,  and  the  sorest 
of  the  blows  received  by  the  Mexican  arms — the  gen 
eral  action  of  Churubusco.  So  dazed  and  disorganized 
were  the  enemy  as  a  result  of  their  overthrow  at  this 
point,  that  Scott's  victorious  columns  could  have  chased 
on  at  their  heels  into  the  heart  of  the  capital  city. 

But  here  again  occurs  a  curious  illustration  of  the 
American  method  of  waging  war  under  civil  super 
vision.  The  administration  had  sent  to  join  Scott's 
army  a  "  Commissioner,"  Mr.  Nicholas  P.  Trist,  a 
worthy  and  amiable  gentleman,  yet  an  embarrassing 
adjunct  to  a  conquering  army.  He  and  Scott  had  begun 
by  misunderstanding  each  other  at  Vera  Cruz,  and  mis- 

105 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

understanding  had  led  Mr.  Trist  to  misrepresentation. 
The  administration  at  Washington  grieved  not  at  all 
over  the  prospect  of  a  rupture  between  Scott  and  Trist ; 
very  possibly  it  was  with  this  hope  that  the  commissioner 
had  been  sent  to  Mexico.  Oddly  enough  the  plans  of 
the  Polk  cabinet  miscarried  here,  even  as  they  had  in 
case  of  old  "  Rough  and  Ready."  Ruptures  came  thick 
and  fast,  soon  after  Churubusco,  and  Scott  was  the 
vortex  of  the  storm,  but  the  trouble  was  not  with  Mr. 
Trist. 

Both  Scott  and  Trist  had  reason  to  believe  the 
Mexican  government  so  rent  and  torn  that  if  driven 
from  its  capital  there  would  be  left  no  recognized  au 
thority  with  which  to  settle  the  terms  of  peace.  As 
these  included  the  yielding  up  of  every  claim  to  Texas 
and  the  sale  of  New  Mexico  and  California,  the  Mexi 
cans  speedily  broke  over  the  traces  and  violated  the 
armistice  agreed  upon,  and  less  than  three  weeks  after 
Churubusco,  the  war,  with  new  and  unequalled  fury, 
was  on  again. 

But  meantime  Scott  had  been  writing  despatches. 
Scott  had  confidence  in  his  pen  equal  only  to  that  in 
which  he  held  his  sword.  Certain  of  his  subordinates, 
too,  had  been  writing.  Scott's  reports  were  for  the 
War  Department.  Scott's  subordinates'  letters  were 
for  the  press  and  personal  glorification.  Scott's  promi 
nent  political  division  commander  was  General  Gideon 
E.  Pillow,  and  while  Scott  was  penning  pages  of  official 
detail  as  to  the  recent  battles,  Pillow  was  publishing 
long  columns  claiming  to  himself  the  honors  of  the 
move  to  the  south  of  Chalco,  and  for  himself  and 
Worth  the  salvation  of  Scott's  army. 

Nowhere  near  as  desperate  or  deadly  as  either 
Monterey  or  Buena  Vista,  Scott  had  crowned  Contreras 
and  Churubusco  with  a  halo  of  martial  glory,  and 
whole  sheafs  and  paleways  of  brevets.  Gallant  and 
meritorious  indeed  were  the  services  of  his  officers  in 

106 


THE  SOLDIER  OF  SAN  COSME 

these  two  stirring  affairs,  but  Contreras,  with  a  total 
loss  of  only  sixty,  was  won  in  a  single  whirlwind  charge, 
and  the  Churubusco  battle  was  a  series  of  attacks  along 
the  hostile  front,  while  with  one  brigade  he  took  the 
enemy  in  flank.  Resistance  seemed  vain,  and  with 
fewer  casualties  among  his  officers,  as  compared  with 
those  of  Taylor  in  his  two  great  battles,  Scott  had 
rushed  the  enemy  off  their  feet.  Then,  exulting  in  such 
success,  he  sought  to  lavish  reward  and  honor  on  the 
gallant  men  who  had  led  his  battalions  and  companies. 
Of  Taylor's  West  Pointers  brevetted,  there  were 
twenty-five  for  Palo  Alto  and  Resaca,  forty  for 
Monterey,  and  thirty  for  Buena  Vista — many  of 
these,  like  Charles  F.  Smith,  McCall,  Duncan,  Bragg, 
J.  F.  Reynolds,  George  H.  Thomas,  coming  in  for  two 
apiece.  No  man  could  say  that  Taylor's  recommenda 
tions  were  not  in  any  case  deserved,  but  when  Scott's 
list  for  Contreras  and  Churubusco  burst  upon  the  army 
comments  were,  to  say  the  least,  satirical.  The  forty 
odd  West  Pointers  named  for  Cerro  Gordo  had  been 
accepted  in  all  good  faith.  In  nearly  every  instance, 
said  their  fellows  of  the  staff  and  line,  the  recommenda 
tion  was  well  merited. 

But  when  on  top  of  this  there  came  a  roster  of  no 
less  than  one  hundred  and  twenty  West  Pointers 
brevetted  for  gallant  and  meritorious  conduct  at  Con 
treras  and  Churubusco — fights  in  which  but  seven  of 
their  number  had  been  killed  (Bacon,  Burke,  Capron, 
Anderson,  Irons,  Johnstone  and  Easley) — the  graduates 
took  alarm.  It  was  a  case  of  "  running  the  thing  into 
the  ground."  Phelps  of  the  Class  of  '36,  and  Hawes 
of  '45,  begged  to  be  excused  and  respectfully  declined, 
while  Grant  of  '43,  on  being  told  that  he,  in  connection 
with  a  certain  other  subaltern,  had  been  recommended 
in  the  same  letter  of  a  regimental  commander,  very 
promptly  and  indignantly  protested:  "If  that  man's 

107 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

entitled  to  a  brevet  I  am  not,"  is  the  way  one  of  his 
biographers  tells  it. 

And  yet,  for  the  desperate  assaults  so  soon  to  follow 
at  Molino  and  Chapultepec,  Scott's  lists  were  reduced 
by  much  more  than  half,  while  his  casualty  lists  were 
very  much  more  than  doubled,  so  far  at  least  as  his 
West  Pointers  were  concerned.  It  is  melancholy  to 
think  that,  when  showered  so  liberally  on  the  just  and 
the  unjust,  there  were  yet  heroic  souls  that  took  their 
flight,  after  noble  leadership  on  many  a  field,  unhonored 
by  a  single  brevet.  Of  such  were  J.  W.  Anderson, 
Dunn,  McKavett,  Martin  Burke  and  Capron;  of  such 
were  the  first  William  Montrose  Graham,  of  the  old 
Fourth  Infantry,  dying  at  Molino  commanding  the 
Eleventh  Infantry,  and  Merrill  heading  the  stormers 
of  the  Fifth;  of  such  were  Bacon,  Burbank,  Burwell, 
Daniels,  Easley,  Ernst,  Farry,  Gantt,  R.  H.  Graham, 
and  so  on  down  a  list  that,  coupled  with  the  names  of 
those  who  died  brevetted,  might  well  challenge  the 
statements  of  the  gentlemen  who  so  lately  spoke  in 
sneering  terms  of  the  trivial  skirmishes  of  our  war  with 
Mexico,  and  of  the  profession  of  arms  as  practised  by 
officers  of  the  United  States. 

Long  before  the  Churubusco  shower  reached 
Washington,  however,  there  had  been  fighting  such  as 
Mexico  had  never  seen  or  heard  of,  and  deeds  of  dar 
ing  that  thrilled  even  our  surfeited  press.  Yet  so 
many  a  glad  young  life  was  snuffed  out,  so  many  a 
brilliant  name  was  stricken  from  the  rolls,  that  mourn 
ing  was  as  widespread  as  triumph  over  the  tidings  of 
Molino,  Chapultepec  and  the  gates  of  Mexico. 

In  these  assaults  it  transpired  that  our  young 
quartermaster  again  left  his  legitimate  duties,  with  his 
wagons,  far  in  rear,  and  turned  up  just  as  far  in  front, 
bearing  a  manful  hand  at  Molino  and  covering  himself 
with  credit  as  an  amateur  artillerist  at  the  San  Cosme 
gate.  And  yet,  as  he  declares  in  his  Memoirs,  Molino 

108 


THE  SOLDIER  OF  SAN  COSME 

was  a  sad  mistake,  a  totally  unnecessary  battle,  and  he 
who  clambered  to  the  low  roof  of  one  of  the  outbuild 
ings,  and  secured  as  prisoners  a  Mexican  officer  of  rank, 
with  a  dozen  followers  at  his  back  (winning  thereby  a 
brevet  he  would  not  decline),  insisted  always  that 
Molino  could  have  been  "  turned  "  instead  of  taken  at 
fearful  cost,  and  that  Chapultepec  need  never  have  been 
stormed  at  all. 

Scott  in  his  autobiography  asserts  that  from  the 
walls  of  Tacubaya,  looking  northeastward,  they  saw 
before  the  armistice  was  closed,  strong  columns  of  the 
enemy  taking  up  position  at  the  old  "  King's  Mills  " — 
los  Molinos  del  Rey,  where  a  long,  low,  foundry-like 
building  had  been  heavily  fortified,  where  its  neighbor, 
the  Casa  Mata,  was  reported  crammed  with  ammunition, 
and  whither  the  very  church  bells  were  being  carted  to 
be  cast  into  cannon  to  replace  the  many  captured  by 
the  hated  Yankees.  Scott's  line  by  this  time,  too,  in 
cluded  Tacubaya,  four  miles  out,  and  when  sudden  end 
came  to  the  armistice  of  nearly  eighteen  days,  Worth's 
division  was  nearest  Molino,  and  to  Worth,  with  only 
three  thousand  two  hundred  and  fifty  men,  was  in 
trusted  the  reduction  of  that  improvised  fortress. 

The  guns  of  the  citadel  at  Chapultepec  to  the  north 
east  had  a  plunging  fire  upon  the  approaches  to  the  old 
mills;  the  walls  and  buildings  were  crammed  with  in 
fantry,  far  outnumbering  the  assaulting  column,  but 
Worth  sent  them  in,  and  for  hours  the  battle  raged, 
hand  to  hand,  as  did  the  savage  fighting  of  the  Guards 
men  of  England  and  the  flower  of  the  French  Infantry 
about  the  walls  of  Hougomont.  Here  died  Ransom, 
colonel  of  the  Ninth;  here  died  Graham,  commanding 
the  Eleventh ;  here  fell  Kirby  Smith,  Shackelford, 
Daniels,  Armstrong,  Ayers,  Burbank,  Ernst,  Morris, 
Strong,  Burwell  and  Farry,  shot  dead  or  speedily  dying 
of  their  wounds.  Here  was  freely  shed  the  blood  of 
many  another  of  the  gallant  band  of  graduates,  George 

109 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Wright  and  Francis  Lee  (major  commanding  Grant's 
regiment),  Anderson  and  Montgomery,  Cady,  Talcott 
and  Price,  Larkin  Smith,  Mason,  Walker,  Ruff  and 
Henry  J.  Hunt  (he  who  was  to  be  our  great  chief 
artillerist  at  Gettysburg),  C.  S.  Hamilton  and  "  Ruddy  " 
Clarke,  Grant's  classmates,  George  Andrews,  Lincoln, 
Foster  and  Snelling,  young  and  enthusiastic  subalterns 
they,  and  all  these,  be  it  remembered,  out  of  only  three 
thousand  men  engaged — all  these  being  but  the  larger 
portion  of  the  killed  and  wounded  among  the  officers, 
for  only  the  West  Pointers  here  are  named.  Molino, 
in  proportion  to  the  numbers  engaged,  was  the  deadliest 
battle  of  the  Mexican  war.  Chapultepec,  carried  by 
storm  only  two  days  later  (and  celebrated  to  this  day 
as  a  glorious  victory  by  many  a  credulous  Mexican), 
was  far  less  costly  in  life  and  limb,  though  it  was  there 
young  Gantt  and  "  Sandy "  Rodgers  laid  down  their 
lives,  and  Lee,  Longstreet,  Mackall,  Tower,  Page  and 
Innis  Palmer  were  stung  by  hostile  lead. 

It  was  on  the  San  Cosme  road  and  causeway  that 
"  Sam "  Grant,  of  the  Fourth,  reached  the  height  of 
his  early  fame.  Along  the  two  causeways  now  the 
Americans  were  fighting  their  way  to  the  city  walls, 
Worth's  division  heading  the  advance  on  the  San  Cosme 
and  Quitman  on  the  Belen  gate.  With  the  very  fore 
most  of  Worth's  pioneers  went  the  quartermaster,  who 
officially  belonged  to  the  hindmost.  The  arches  of  the 
aqueduct  gave  partial  shelter  until  they  reached  the 
junction  with  the  east  and  west  road,  and  here  the  aque 
duct  turned;  here  cannon  and  musketry  both  blocked 
the  way,  and  here  the  common  sense  of  the  quarter 
master  came  into  play.  A  walled  enclosure  abutted  on 
both  roads  in  the  southeast  angle.  Grant  managed  to 
reach  it,  and  presently  had  led  a  little  detachment  under 
shelter  of  the  walls  to  a  point  on  the  eastward  cause 
way,  beyond  the  guns  and  the  main  body  of  the  de 
fense,  a  piece  of  Yankee  enterprise  and  effrontery  that 

no 


THE  SOLDIER  OF  SAN  COSME 

proved  too  much  for  Mexican  nerve,  and  opened  the 
onward  way  to  the  gates. 

And  here  again  was  a  stiff  and  stubborn  fight,  and 
here  again  common  sense  and  the  quartermaster  be 
came  prominent  factors  in  the  victory  that  followed. 
The  Mexican  guns  at  the  gateway  and  musketry  on 
the  walls  swept  the  causeway  far  out  to  the  west.  To 
right  and  left  of  it  were  wet  ditches,  marshy  ponds  and 
but  little  solid  ground,  yet  on  such  ground  there  was  to 
the  south  of  the  road  a  stone  church  and  convent,  and 
thither  Grant  managed  to  make  his  way,  clambered  to 
the  belfry,  and  there  under  his  eyes  and  but  a  few 
hundred  yards  distant,  were  the  guns  of  the  San  Cosme 
and  their  defenders.  Sheltered  from  the  direct  aim  of 
his  comrades  along  the  causeway  and  sweeping  it  with 
every  discharge,  the  Mexican  defenders  were  exposed 
to  a  raking  gunfire — if  only  he  had  the  gun. 

As  luck  would  have  it,  a  mountain  howitzer  had 
been  brought  along  by  the  Voltigeurs,  and  it  was  some 
where  back  among  the  archways  of  the  aqueduct. 
Hastening  thither  and  asking  no  authority,  Grant 
pointed  out  the  church  to  the  gunners,  told  them  of  the 
splendid  chance  it  gave  and  offered  to  lead  them  on, 
and  on  they  went,  over  hedges  and  ditches,  dragging 
their  little  "boomer"  with  them.  Then  up  the  steep 
and  tortuous  stairway,  with  prodigious  energy  they 
boosted  their  gun  and  hoisted  shell  and  cartridges,  and 
then  suddenly  from  that  isolated  belfry  there  burst 
a  challenge  of  flash  and  flame  and  the  loud  bellow  of 
the  howitzer,  and  all  Worth's  division  saw  with  de 
light  that  some  one  had  had  the  "horse  sense"  to 
reach  out  and  seize  that  commanding  perch,  and  was 
pouring  death  and  destruction  among  the  defenders  at 
San  Cosine  Gate.  Rejoicefully  Worth  sent  his  aide- 
de-camp,  Pemberton,  to  find  the  officer  who  headed  that 
enterprise  and  fetch  him  to  the  presence  of  the  division 
commander,  and  so  the  future  defender  of  Vicksburg 

in 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

poked  his  head  up  into  the  fire-spitting,  smoke-shrouded, 
ecclesiastical  gun  platform  and  asked  who  was  doing 
all  this,  and  his  future  conqueror,  all  dust  and  grime, 
had  no  time  to  answer  questions  until  told  the  general 
wished  to  see  him  and  personally  thank  him.  Bloody 
fighting  they  were  having  over  at  the  Belen  Gate,  as 
many  a  gallant  officer  had  found  to  his  cost.  There 
Drum  and  Benjamin  lay  dead,  and  Beauregard, 
Brannan,  Lyon,  Lovell,  Van  Dorn  and  Fitz  John  Porter 
were  bleeding  from  their  wounds;  but  here  at  San 
Cosme  Sam  Grant's  sacerdotal  howitzer  had  blazed 
the  way  for  his  war-worn  comrades,  and,  sweeping  the 
defenders  from  the  guns,  had  enabled  the  storming 
column  to  reach  the  walls. 

"  Splendidly  done,  sir !  "  was  the  compliment  he  re 
ceived  from  his  division  general,  and  no  less  than  three 
commanders  by  name  referred  to  him  in  their  official 
reports.  Frank  Lee,  major  commanding  the  Fourth, 
wrote  of  Lieutenant  Grant  that  he  had  borne  himself 
with  "  distinguished  gallantry,"  while  his  old  chief,  Gar 
land,  still  heading  the  brigade,  recommended  him  for 
official  notice  and  reward  for  "  acquitting  himself  most 
nobly  on  several  occasions."  No  subaltern  in  all  the 
line  had  won  higher  praise  or  more  of  it.  His  brevet 
of  captain,  while  still  a  second  lieutenant,  dates  from 
this  1 3th  of  September,  "  for  gallant  conduct  at  Cha- 
pultepec,"  as  the  general  engagement  was  named. 

In  two  years  now,  so  swiftly  came  the  casualties  of 
the  Mexican  war,  he  had  risen  from  the  foot  to  the  head 
of  the  list  of  second  lieutenants  of  the  Fourth  Infantry, 
and  here  and  within  the  compass  of  another  day  came 
still  further  advancement.  Such  determined  valor  as 
shown  by  the  storming  columns  had  proved  too  much 
for  the  Mexican  chieftain,  Santa  Ana.  With  the 
"  Gringos  "  thundering  at  both  the  Belen  and  San  Cosme 
Gates,  he  that  night  turned  loose  the  convicts  and  des 
peradoes  in  the  city  prisons,  left  them  arms  and  am- 

112 


THE  SOLDIER  OF  SAN  COSME 

munition  with  which  to  pour  desultory  fire  from  house 
tops  and  windows  when  the  invaders  burst  their  in 
evitable  way,  and,  gathering  his  chosen  about  him, 
slipped  northward  out  of  the  city.  Next  morning  when 
the  leaders  of  the  Fourth  Infantry  broke  cheering 
through  the  portal  of  San  Cosme  and  swarmed  into  the 
city  streets,  one  of  the  first  to  fall,  stricken  down  by  the 
bullet  of  a  felon,  was  Sydney  Smith,  who,  dying,  made 
his  mourning  and  admiring  friend  a  first  lieutenant. 

It  was  Grant's  last  battle  for  many  a  day. 

That  winter  was  spent  in  and  about  the  city  of 
Mexico,  recuperating,  making  themselves  acquainted 
with  the  country,  and  reading  the  tremendous  tales  in 
the  papers  of  their  prowess  in  the  field;  but  the  tales 
told  of  and  by  General  Pillow  and  certain  of  his  fol 
lowers  eclipsed  all  others.  They  ignored  the  command 
ing  general ;  they  exalted  beyond  all  measure  the  ser 
vices  of  Pillow's  division;  and  they  brought  about  a 
lamentable  breach  between  brave  and  brilliant  Scott 
and  two  of  the  bravest  and  most  brilliant  of  his  sub 
ordinates,  erstwhile  devoted  followers  and  friends — 
Worth,  commander  of  the  famous  and  hard-fighting 
First  Division,  and  Duncan,  the  "  lightning "  com 
mander  of  their  famous  battery.  It  was  something 
Grant  never  forgot.  It  was  something  he  had  in  mind 
when,  after  his  own  brilliant  campaign  in  central  Mis 
sissippi,  one  of  his  corps  commanders  took  to  publish 
ing,  even  as  had  Pillow  in  '47,  and  it  led  to  prompt  and 
summary  action,  as  will  later  be  seen.  But  Scott  in 
'47  had  no  friendly  and  grateful  administration  behind 
him  as  had  Grant  in  '63. 

Worth  had  been  Scott's  aide-de-camp  in  days  gone 
by,  and  loved  him.  Worth  had  at  first  been  Scott's 
most  admired  division  commander.  Even  at  Churu- 
busco  he  had  praised  him  as  daring  and  skilful,  and  at 
Molino  had  given  him  the  post  of  honor;  but  an  envious 
soul  had  sought  to  break  up  that  time-tried  comrade- 
3  113 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

ship,  and  had  succeeded.  Scott  had  become  suspicious 
and  Worth  estranged.  Duncan  had  sided  with  his  di 
vision  chief,  and  the  army  looked  sorrowfully  on  as  the 
breach  widened  and  the  war  of  words  and  recrimination 
waged.  Exasperated  at  length,  Scott  had  ordered 
Worth,  Pillow  and  Duncan  in  arrest,  and  the  answer  of 
the  administration  was  the  promotion  of  Duncan  to  be 
colonel  and  inspector  general  of  the  army;  and,  with  the 
order  for  a  court  in  the  case  of  the  accused  officers,  there 
came  from  Washington  as  the  final  reward  of  his  bril 
liant  services,  the  order  for  a  court  of  inquiry  on  Scott 
himself. 

But  before  this  melancholy  close  had  come  to  his 
brilliant  campaign  and  career  in  Mexico,  Scott  had 
figured  in  many  a  dramatic  scene — his  spectacular  entry 
into  the  capital  city  was  one;  his  memorable  dinner  in 
honor  of  General  Twiggs  was  another.  Twiggs  was  to 
take  command  at  Vera  Cruz,  and  on  the  eve  of  his  de 
parture  Scott  feasted  him  at  a  banquet  attended  by 
Commissioner  Trist,  by  several  prominent  civilian  resi 
dents,  British  and  others,  and  by  Generals  Twiggs, 
Persifer  Smith,  Franklin  Pierce  and  Caleb  Gushing, 
and  by  half  a  dozen  officers  of  high  rank,  of  whom  only 
two  were  graduates  of  West  Point.  Scott  wished  to 
spare  their  blushes,  he  said,  for  it  was  on  this  occasion 
he  toasted  the  Military  Academy  of  the  nation  and 
paid  to  its  eleves  a  remarkable  tribute :  "  But  for  the 
science  of  West  Point,"  said  he,  "  this  army,  multiplied 
by  four,  could  not  have  entered  the  capital  of  Mexico." 

Still  later,  testifying  before  a  congressional  com 
mittee,  Scott  said  as  follows: 

"  I  give  it  as  my  fixed  opinion  that  but  for  our  graduated 
cadets,  the  war  between  the  United  States  and  Mexico  would 
have  lasted  four  or  five  years,  with,  in  its  first  half,  more 
defeats  than  victories  falling  to  our  share,  whereas,  in  less 
than  two  campaigns  we  conquered  a  great  country  and  a  peace 
without  the  loss  of  a  single  battle  or  a  skirmish." 

114 


THE  SOLDIER  OF  SAN  COSME 

And  of  these  graduated  cadets,  as  the  winter  wore 
on,  by  common  consent  among  the  survivors,  there  was 
no  junior  in  the  entire  array  who  had  acquitted  himself 
with  higher  credit,  or  had  rendered  more  valiant  or 
valuable  services,  than  the  very  modest  and  mild- 
mannered  young  quartermaster  of  the  Fourth  Infantry, 
not  yet  four  years  out  of  the  leading  strings  of  West 
Point,  and  yet  widely  known  among  the  little  army  of 
exiles  at  the  capital  city  as  "  Old  Sam  Grant."  And 
all  of  this  was  soon  to  be  forgotten,  and  in  spite  of  all 
this  it  is  often  declared  that  Grant  had  never  been  heard 
of  before  the  war  for  the  preservation  of  the  Union. 


CHAPTER  XII 
PEACE— THE  PACIFIC  COAST  AND  TROUBLE 

THE  T.  I.  O.  of  cadet  days  had  by  this  time  become 
widely  scattered.  But  presently  there  grew  up  within 
the  walls  of  Mexico  an  association  of  officers  that 
lived  long  famous  in  the  annals  of  the  army.  Created 
by  graduates  of  West  Point,  it  was  planned  to  include 
in  its  membership  many  a  gallant  and  worthy  officer  of 
volunteers,  and  the  very  first  president  elected  by  the 
"  Aztecs  "  was  the  commanding  general  of  the  Second 
Brigade  of  the  Third,  Pillow's,  Division,  Franklin 
Pierce,  of  New  Hampshire — he  who  was  to  defeat 
Scott  for  the  presidency  in  the  fall  of  1854,  and  to  be 
lampooned  from  one  end  of  the  Union  to  the  other, 
after  the  manner  of  our  press  and  politicians,  as  a  con 
temptible  coward.  That  he  should  have  been  chosen 
by  the  almost  unanimous  vote  of  his  brother  officers, 
most  of  them  regulars,  to  be  the  first  president  of  that 
exclusive  body,  the  "  Aztecs,"  is  sufficient  in  itself  to 
refute  the  charge  that  he  was  hiding  in  the  ditches  at 
the  rear  while  his  men  were  fighting  at  the  front.  The 
few  months  that  elapsed  before  the  recall  of  General 
Scott  had  given  the  little  army  opportunity  to  sift  the 
truth  out  of  most  of  the  stories  in  circulation,  and  the 
difference  between  the  accounts  brought  home  by  the 
earliest  returning  warriors,  and  those  which  became  the 
standard  versions  among  the  "  Aztecs,"  the  stay-it- 
through  soldiers,  was  a  curious  and  interesting  study. 
Many  a  reputation  that  went  up  like  a  rocket  in  the  fall 
of  '47,  came  down  like  a  stick  with  the  final  returns. 
But  one  thing  the  campaign  had  proved  beyond  perad- 
venture,  and  that  was  the  fighting  power  of  the  young 
West  Pointers,  fifty  of  whom  had  been  killed  and  eighty- 

116 


PEACE— THE  PACIFIC  COAST  AND  TROUBLE 

seven  wounded  in  battle,  the  classes  nearest  Grant  being 
by  far  the  heaviest  losers. 

And  while  studying  these  statistics  of  that  un 
righteous  war  with  Mexico,  it  may  be  well  to  record 
this  fact:  In  point  of  numbers  actually  engaged  there 
was  never  a  fight  of  any  consequence  in  which  the 
Mexican  force  did  not  far  outnumber  the  Americans, 
usually  three  or  four  to  one,  but  Mexican  leadership 
from  first  to  last  was  wretched.  They  lost  to  a  fighting 
force  that  at  no  time  exceeded  eight  thousand  men,  no 
less  than  forty  thousand  taken  prisoners,  a  thousand 
cannon,  and  ten  fortified  positions  carried  by  siege  or 
assault.  As  the  entire  army  of  the  United  States  con 
tained  at  that  time  no  more  than  five  hundred  graduates 
of  West  Point,  it  may  reasonably  be  conceded  that  there 
was  glory  enough  to  go  round  and  leave  abundance  to 
be  shared  by  their  comrades  the  volunteers.  Surely 
Baker's  men  at  Cerro  Gordo,  under  the  lead  of  that 
heroic  figure,  the  earlier  friend  and  "  statesman  "  of 
Abraham  Lincon,  the  later  gifted  orator  of  the  Pacific 
coast  and  of  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  the  soldier 
sacrifice  of  Ball's  Bluff,  had  won  a  place  in  history. 
Surely  the  flank  attack  of  Shields,  another  famous 
volunteer  from  Illinois,  had  vastly  helped  to  turn  the 
tide  at  Churubusco.  Surely  the  Mississippians  at  Buena 
Vista  had  won  old  Rough  and  Ready's  hearty  praise, 
and  more  than  that,  his  final  forgiveness  of  that  un- 
desired,  but  most  gallant,  son-in-law,  their  wounded 
West  Point  colonel,  Jefferson  Davis.  Surely  the  Ken- 
tuckians  at  Buena  Vista,  after  losing  in  succession 
their  heroic  leaders,  McKee  and  Henry  Clay,  colonel  and 
lieutenant-colonel  respectively,  and  West  Pointers  both 
of  high  renown — surely  these  had  won  a  name  the  nation 
never  yet  has  forgotten  and  never  will  forget,  so  long 
as  men  read,  and  hearts  thrill  over  the  glowing  words 
of  Theodore  O'Hara : 

117 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Sons  of  the  Dark  and  Bloody  Ground, 

Ye  must  not  slumber  there, 
Where    stranger    steps    and    tongues    resound 

Along   the   heedless   air. 
Your  own  proud  land's  heroic  soil 

Shall  be  your  fitter  grave. 
She  claims  from  war  his  richest  spoil — 

The  ashes  of  her  brave. 

But  after  all  the  fighting  came  the  lull  of  inaction 
and  the  letters  and  papers  from  home,  and  then  dissen 
sions  among  the  chiefs  and  discussions  among  the 
juniors,  the  wiser  heads  avoiding  both.  During  the  fall 
and  winter  months  that  followed  the  final  victory  many 
and  various  were  the  methods  resorted  to  for  killing 
time.  Cards,  drills,  dances  and  dinners  were  the  main 
devices,  though  we  hear  of  an  occasional  cock  fight  and 
even  a  semi-occasional  bull  fight  gotten  up  by  the  natives 
for  the  lucre,  not  the  love,  of  the  hated  invader.  For 
none  of  these  had  "  Sam  "  Grant  any  liking  whatever. 
The  cock  and  the  bull  fights  he  would  not  attend.  Many 
of  the  officers  took  to  learning  Spanish.  The  methods 
were  alluring  and  many  of  the  teachers  charming,  but 
for  Spanish  Grant  felt  as  much  aversion  as  he  earlier 
had  for  French,  and  as  for  the  teachers,  they  lured 
him  not  at  all. 

In  those  months  of  rest  and  relaxation  there  was 
active  employment  for  the  staff,  and  Grant  had  his 
hands  full.  His  duty  it  was  to  provide  for  the  needs 
of  the  inner  as  well  as  the  outer  man.  There  were  no 
regimental  commissaries  in  those  days ;  this  function 
devolved  upon  the  quartermaster,  and  in  the  perform 
ance  of  these  duties  Grant  very  successfully  ran  a 
military  bakery  which  produced  bread  of  excellent 
quality  at  moderate  price,  and  declared  a  dividend  in 
favor  of  the  Fourth.  He  made  peaceful  forays  into 
the  interior,  and  brought  home  food,  fruits,  forage,  all 
much  appreciated,  both  by  man  and  beast.  He  had  few 

118 


ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 
While  Lieutenant  4th  Infantry 
The   photograph  from   which  this   was  taken 
distinctly  shows  captain  shoulder  straps  under  the 
epaulettes.     It  must  have  been  taken  just  after  the 
Mexican  War,  at  the  time  of  his  marriage  in  1848 — 
when  he  was  brevet  captain. 

From  "Grant  s  Kife  in  the  West  and  his  Mississippi  Campaign," 
l.y  Col.  John  W.  limerson,  published  in  the  Midland  Monthly. 
Uy  kindness  of  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 


PEACE— THE  PACIFIC  COAST  AND  TROUBLE 

books  to  read,  but  there  were  frequent  letters  now,  long 
ones,  that  seemed  to  give  him  infinite  satisfaction,  and 
to  require  long  hours  of  semi-seclusion  for  absorption 
and  for  reply. 

And  yet  his  old  comrades  tell  of  him  that  he  was  far 
from  being  reserved  or  solitary  then.  He  seemed  to 
enjoy  the  fun  and  chaff  and  chatter  after  mess,  only  it 
was  his  way  to  listen  rather  than  to  talk.  His  keen 
eyes,  twinkling  with  fun  and  appreciation,  would  glance 
from  speaker  to  speaker,  "  taking  them  all  in  and  sizing 
them  up,"  as  once  said  a  veteran  of  the  "  Aztecs/'  to  the 
end  that  as  the  springtime  came  on,  and  the  treaty  of 
peace  at  Guadalupe  Hidalgo,  it  would  seem  that  Grant 
had  made  a  rather  accurate  mental  estimate  of  the 
character  and  capacity  of  most  of  his  messmates  and 
many  a  man  in  other  commands.  There  was  to  come 
a  time  when  such  knowledge  would  prove  of  infinite 
value  to  him  and,  through  him,  to  the  nation. 

They  made  an  excursion  to  Popocatapetl,  too,  and 
had  a  trying  experience,  with  no  little  temporary  suffer 
ing,  but  after  all  they  were  glad,  without  exception, 
when  the  dolce  far  niente  days  about  the  capital  were 
ended  and  the  army  on  the  march  for  home.  Grant 
had  saved  a  little  money  from  his  salary,  for  expenses 
were  not  high  in  the  land  of  mafiana.  Peace  with  honor 
had  come,  and  he  was  being  hailed  by  the  Fourth  as 
Captain  Grant,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  Senate  was 
unaccountably  "  holding  up  "  some  brevet  nominations, 
even  while  lavishly  confirming  others.  The  home  folk 
were  all  eager  to  see  and  welcome  him  at  Georgetown, 
but  out  at  White  Haven,  on  the  Gravois  road  south 
west  of  St.  Louis,  there  was  waiting  a  girl  who  was 
prouder  of  that  Monterey-Molino  and  San  Cosme 
record,  and  of  those  two  brevets,  than  were  even  the 
gentle  mother  and  sisters  at  home.  Julia  Dent  had  a 
brother  in  the  army  and  knew  something  about  such 
things,  but  Grant,  the  father,  Jesse  Root  of  Brown 

119 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

County,  looked  only  with  pragmatical  eyes  upon  the 
reward  for  services  rendered.  What  were  brevets  of 
first  lieutenant  and  captain  if  they  brought  with  them 
no  extra  pay  with  which  to  purchase  captains' 
shoulder-straps  and  epaulets — the  only  tangible  tokens 
of  the  honors  the  son  had  received? 

But  meantime,  on  the  homeward  way,  misfortune 
had  come  to  Grant. 

Just  before  the  march  began,  while  still  at  Tacubaya, 
our  quartermaster  found  himself  with  something  over 
a  thousand  dollars  of  government  funds  which  had  to 
be  taken  along  and  for  which  he  had  no  safe.  Exactly 
one  thousand  dollars,  therefore,  was  placed  in  the  trunk 
of  Captain  Gore,  as  secure  a  receptacle  as  any  one  could 
suggest,  and  ten  nights  thereafter  that  trunk  was  skil 
fully  taken  from  the  little  tent  in  which  Captain  Gore 
and  his  young  lieutenant,  John  de  Russy,  were  soundly 
sleeping.  A  board  of  officers  convened  at  Jalapa  and 
exonerated  Grant  of  all  blame  or  responsibility,  but 
Uncle  Sam  is  a  relentless  creditor  in  such  matters. 
The  Treasury  Department  held  it  up  against  the  help 
less  officer,  pending  the  remote  passage  of  an  act  of 
Congress  for  his  relief,  and  for  years  that  possible  stop 
page  against  his  pitiably  small  stipend  hung  ever  above 
him.  That,  too,  was  to  augment  his  worries  in  the  near 
future,  but  for  the  time  being,  supposing  official  ex 
oneration  all  sufficient,  he  lived  in  roseate  hope  and 
anticipation. 

A  luckier  regiment  was  sent  to  occupy  the  Fourth's 
old  quarters  at  Jefferson  Barracks ;  but,  along  in  the 
early  summer,  looking  somewhat  tanned  and  a  trifle 
older,  the  young  soldier  suitor  reappeared  at  White 
Haven,  and  a  quiet  little  ceremony  was  presently  en 
acted,  attended  by  several  cherished  comrades  of  the 
war  days,  notably  Cadmus  Wilcox  and  that  tall  Eighth 
Infantryman  Longstreet.  There  was  a  brief  and  modest 
honeymoon,  and  then  along  in  the  autumn  the  young 

120 


PEACE— THE  PACIFIC  COAST  AND  TROUBLE 

couple  journeyed  to  Sackett  Harbor,  New  York,  and 
regimental  duty  was  resumed.  The  old  Fourth  by  that 
time  was  scattered  among  the  few  stations  along  the 
great  lakes — mainly  at  Fort  Wayne,  just  below  Detroit, 
at  Sackett  Harbor  and  Mackinac. 

But  the  Fourth  was  changing.  Major  Lee  was  no 
longer  in  command,  and  presently,  in  May,  '49,  Lieu 
tenant-Colonel  Bonneville,  a  comparative  stranger  to 
them  and  to  their  traditions,  joined  and  assumed  com 
mand.  The  quartermastership  had  been  resigned  about 
the  time  of  the  marriage,  and  Grant  did  company  duty 
for  a  while,  cheerily  enough,  for  the  young  bride  was 
there  to  tie  his  sash  and  buckle  the  belt  more  trimly,  and 
persuade  him,  long  accustomed  to  the  laxities  of  bear 
ing  and  dress  permitted  in  storeroom  and  corral,  to  pay 
more  attention  to  his  military  appearance.  Though 
neat  as  a  new  pin,  Grant  hated  the  black  stock  and 
snugly  buttoned  frock.  It  was  not  long,  however,  be 
fore  the  quartermaster  pro  tern  found  other  and  more 
attractive  duty,  and  regimental  sentiment  recalled 
"  Sam "  Grant.  Colonel  Bonneville,  already  aging 
(graduate  of  the  Class  of  1815),  was  twenty-eight 
years  Grant's  senior  in  the  service.  He  had  other  views 
as  to  that  vacancy,  but  so  strong  was  regimental  feeling 
in  the  matter  that  he  decided  it  unwise  to  oppose  it. 
Grant  was  again,  in  September,  '49,  called  to  the  office, 
and  for  four  more  years  uninterruptedly  and  most 
creditably  performed  its  manifold  duties,  but  during 
those  four  years  marked  and  memorable  events  oc 
curred,  and  the  high  content  with  which  he  resumed 
duty  as  quartermaster,  and  the  happiness  the  army  home 
life  now  afforded  him,  were  destined  to  suffer  serious 
relapse. 

The  Mexican  war  ended,  and  all  hope  of  promotion 
blocked  by  the  opening  of  the  year  1850,  a  period  of 
semi-stagnation  fell  upon  the  service,  in  the  midst  of 
which,  in  '52,  the  government  decided  on  sending  more 

121 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

troops  to  the  recently  acquired  territory  on  the  Pacific 
coast.  The  gold  excitement  in  California  had  led  to 
rapid  increase  of  population  there.  The  Indians  in 
Oregon  were  giving  trouble,  and,  as  luck  would  have 
it,  the  old  Fourth  were  ordered  to  leave  their  cosy, 
homelike  stations  along  the  lakes,  bid  farewell  to  civiliza 
tion,  and  prepare  for  duty  in  an  untrodden  wilderness. 
The  blow  came  upon  the  Grants  when  their  first-born, 
named  for  his  gallant  Uncle  Fred  (Frederick  Dent"), 
was  just  beginning  to  toddle  about  and  tumble  into  nils- 
chief.  There  were  now  other  reasons  why  it  would  have 
been  a  grievous  hardship  for  that  young  wife  and  mother 
to  attempt  the  long,  trying  trip  by  sea,  to  the  far-away 
shores  of  the  Pacific.  There  was  again  aroused  in 
Grant  the  desire  to  quit  the  army  as  so  many  of  his 
West  Point  comrades  were  doing,  most  of  them  for 
fairly  lucrative  positions  in  civil  life.  Barely  four  years 
after  their  happy  wedding  Grant  bowed  to  what  he 
considered  the  inevitable,  and  decided  to  leave  his  wife 
and  son  to  the  care  of  the  Dents  at  St.  Louis,  to  ac 
company  his  regiment  and  see  the  marvellous  new  El 
Dorado  within  the  Golden  Gate,  when  possibly  at  San 
Francisco  he  might  find  the  very  opportunity  he  sought, 
but  if  not,  surely  where  so  many  others  had  succeeded 
in  obtaining  professorships  or  engineering  work  in  "  the 
States/'  the  chances  were  that  he,  too,  could  do  so.  The 
mails  were  burdened  with  his  letters  to  all  manner  of 
men  who  had  quit  soldiering  for  civil  pursuits.  The/e 
were  Gilham  and  Johnson,  of  the  Class  of  1840,  both 
established  as  professors,  the  one  at  the  Virginia  Mili 
tary  Institute,  the  other  in  that  of  West  Kentucky. 
There  were  Whiting  and  Tilden,  of  the  same  class,  both 
teaching  for  a  living.  There  was  Sears  of  '41,  already 
professor  of  mathematics  at  the  University  of  Louisi 
ana.  There  were  Stewart,  of  '42,  professor  of  mathe 
matics  at  Cumberland  University,  Tennessee;  Hill  at 
Washington  College,  Lexington,  Virginia,  and  William- 

122 


PEACE— THE  PACIFIC  COAST  AND  TROUBLE 

son  at  the  Kentucky  Military  Institute.  Quinby  of  his 
own  class,  their  crack  mathematician,  had  just  resigned 
and  taken  a  professorship  at  Rochester  University,  New 
York,  and  there  were  Curd  and  Read  of  '44,  both  pro 
fessors  of  mathematics  or  science.  There  were  a  dozen 
others,  Fahnestock,  Hammond,  Darne,  Johnstone, 
Robertson,  Story  and  Hebert,  all  reported  doing  well 
as  planters  or  farmers.  There  were  McCalmont  and 
Collins  in  the  law ;  Gill  and  Thomas  in  railway  engineer 
ing.  There  was  that  odd  genius  of  the  plebe  class 
when  Grant  was  a  senior,  Thomas  J.  Jackson,  of  Vir 
ginia;  he,  too,  had  just  taken  a  professorship  at  the 
Virginia  Military  Institute.  Then  Deshon,  his  room 
mate  at  one  time,  had  resigned  after  eight  years  of 
ordnance  duty,  and  was  seeking  holy  orders.  Then  there 
was  Couts,  after  years  in  the  dragoons  and  Lower 
California,  who  resigned  to  become  a  ranchero.  If  all 
these  men  whom  he  well  knew,  and  so  many  more  of 
whom  he  had  only  heard,  could  so  readily  establish  them 
selves  in  civil  pursuits,  surely  he,  too,  could  find  some 
thing  better  for  himself,  for  his  young  wife  and  that 
burly  baby  boy  than  the  one-room-and-a-kitchen-with- 
less-than-a-thousand-a-year,  which  was  the  best  the 
Army  could  promise  him  for  a  decade  or  more  to  come. 
It  would  seem  that  right  here  and  now  the  prospering 
father  might  have  borne  a  hand.  The  best,  however, 
that  Jesse  had  to  offer,  if  anything,  was  the  tannery 
again,  and  it  all  ended  as  it  had  in  '45,  with  Grant's 
going  with  his  regiment,  and  for  a  second  time,  and 
under  far  more  trying  and  touching  circumstances,  with 
his  heart  yearning  over  "  the  girl  I  left  behind  me." 
For  once  in  his  life,  if  not  oftener,  he  thanked  his  stars 
he  could  not  tell  one  tune  from  another,  or  in  spite  of 
his  manhood  his  eyes  might  well  have  brimmed  over 
when  the  fifes  and  drums  of  the  Fourth  struck  up  the 
soldier  lay  to  which  for  half  a  century,  at  least, 
wherever  "  England's  martial  drumbeat,  companion  of 

123 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

the  hours  "  had  girdled  the  globe,  her  men-at-arms  and 
those  of  her  independent  daughter  Columbia,  had 
marched  away  to  other  fields,  leaving  weeping  wives  and 
maids  at  home. 

A  solemn  journey  was  that  to  the  Pacific.  A 
crowded,  side-wheel  steamer  took  the  eight  companies, 
men,  women  and  children,  in  the  very  season  of  all 
others  when  they  should  not  have  been  sent  there,  mid 
summer,  to  the  Isthmus  of  Panama.  From  Aspinwall 
they  could  be  trundled  on  the  new  railway  as  far  as  the 
banks  of  the  Chagres  River ;  then  they  had  to  be  poled 
or  pulled  in  small  boats  up  stream  to  Gorgona ;  then  came 
twenty-five  miles  "  mule  back  or  marching  "  across  the 
range  to  Panama  and  the  Pacific. 

Bonneville  and  the  troops  marched  away  from 
Gorgona  in  comparative  comfort,  leaving  the  quarter 
master  to  look  after  the  many  wives  and  children  of  the 
soldiery,  all  the  regimental  baggage,  the  sick  and  broken 
down,  the  skulkers  and  stragglers.  It  is  no  trick  to  ride 
away  at  the  head  of  a  regular  regiment  for  a  march 
of  twenty  or  thirty  miles,  but  the  labors  of  Hercules 
were  light  in  comparison  with  the  burden  of  respon 
sibility  and  care  the  colonel  shunted  on  the  shoulders  of 
Grant.  It  was  that  summer  they  began  to  stoop. 

They  were  all  to  follow  "  by  contract  "  from  Cruces, 
but  the  contractor  could  not  begin  to  fill  the  bill,  he  had 
not  mules  enough  by  half.  They  were  marooned,  a 
colony  of  fretful  women  and  crying  children,  in  the 
pestilential  thickets  of  the  Chagres  fully  a  week,  wait 
ing  for  the  new  contractor  Grant  had  found,  and  in  the 
midst  of  it  all  and  of  their  enforced  camp,  there  came 
that  dreaded  foe,  the  cholera. 

One  company  had  been  left  to  guard  them  from 
marauders  or  plunderers,  but  the  coming  of  the  plague, 
from  which  no  human  force  could  then  defend  them, 
made  other  guards  unnecessary.  Grant  ordered  that 
company  forthwith  to  rejoin  the  regiment.  Then  with 

124 


PEACE— THE  PACIFIC  COAST  AND  TROUBLE 

his  little  band  of  helpers  reduced  to  the  married  soldiers, 
he  gathered  up  his  stricken  caravan  and  started  on  the 
slow  and  mournful  march  to  the  coast.  Barely  twenty 
miles  had  he  to  cover,  but  by  the  time  he  turned  over 
his  charge  to  the  officials  at  Panama,  one- third  of  his 
number  had  succumbed  to  cholera  and  had  been  buried 
either  at  Cruces  or  along  the  way.  No  wonder  "  Old 
Sam "  Grant  seemed  aging  more  rapidly  than  his 
fellows. 

When  at  last  the  voyage  to  San  Francisco  could  be 
resumed,  some  three  weeks  later,  Grant  was  looking  ten 
years  older.  The  regiment  was  rallying  about  him  more 
cordially  than  ever;  company  officers  and  men  all 
seemed  to  swear  by  him, but  Major  Lee, his  stanch  friend, 
had  been  promoted  out  to  the  lieutenant-colonelcy  of 
the  Sixth.  The  new  major  fell  in  with  the  lieutenant- 
colonel  commanding,  and  with  a  captain  or  two,  men 
who  had  served  with  other  commands  at  Vera  Cruz  and 
the  march  to  Mexico;  and  so  it  happened  that  officers 
who  had  borne  the  heat  and  burden  of  the  day  and  had 
fought  and  bled  and  shared  every  peril  with  the  Fourth, 
although  largely  in  the  majority,  were  not  the  men  in 
authority — the  men  in  highest  rank  and  in  control. 
These  were  considerations  destined  deeply  to  affect  the 
fortunes  of  the  man  the  regiment  all  the  more  stoutly 
supported  in  the  quartermastership,  and,  unconsciously, 
perhaps,  added  to  the  latent  antagonism  existing  in  the 
mind  of  the  lieutenant-colonel  commanding,  and  by  him 
(is  it  an  unfair  inference?)  communicated  to  his  own 
especial  associates,  the  major,  and  a  senior  captain  des 
tined  presently  to  be  detailed  to  important  and  sig 
nificant  commands. 

A  brief  while  the  regiment  tarried  at  Benicia,  and 
then  was  shipped  up  the  coast  to  the  Columbia,  where 
headquarters  were  established  at  Columbia  Barracks, 
now  Fort  Vancouver,  with  two  companies  detached  to 
a  lonely  station  at  Humboldt  Bay  to  the  south.  The 

125 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

command  of  the  district  of  Northern  California  was 
presently  given  to  the  major,  George  Wright.  The 
command  of  the  little  isolated  post  of  Fort  Humboldt 
had  fallen  to  that  senior  captain  and  veteran  soldier, 
Robert  C.  Buchanan.  Meantime  for  a  year  Grant  con 
tinued  his  duties  as  regimental  quartermaster  at 
Columbia  Barracks,  a  year  filled  with  cares,  anxieties 
and  yearnings  that  no  one  fully  understood,  since  he  so 
rarely  spoke  of  them,  and  that  withdrew  him  little  by 
little  from  the  cheery  companionship  of  his  fellows. 

To  begin  with,  there  had  come,  even  as  he  was  fight 
ing  cholera  on  the  Isthmus,  a  second  baby  boy,  and  the 
reason  why  so  devoted  a  husband  as  Grant  could  leave 
his  wife  behind  was  more  easily  understood.  But  these 
hostages  to  fortune  involved  care  and  cost  and  respon 
sibility  in  proportion  to  the  numbers,  and  Grant  had 
other  cares.  That  confounded  thousand-dollar  loss  at 
Puebla  had  been  a  sore  distress.  There  were  men  at 
Sackett  Harbor  with  whom  he  had  business  relations  in 
bygone  days,  who  owed  him  money  in  considerable  sums 
but,  now  that  he  was  long  months  and  miles  away, 
ignored  his  claims.  He  had  embarked  in  some  little 
enterprises  about  Vancouver  which  he  hoped  might  add 
a  few  dollars  to  his  pay,  and  they  were  doing  just  the 
reverse.  He  was  becoming  more  and  more  silent  and 
obviously  sad,  and  presently  it  became  known  to  many 
an  officer  that  "  Sam  "  Grant  was  beginning  to  drink 
more  than  was  good  for  him. 

He  who  had  been  so  free  from  vice  of  any  and 
every  kind,  was  yielding  to  a  not  uncommon  weakness, 
probably  because  in  his  loneliness  and  longing  it  seemed 
to  bring  him  temporary  surcease  from  pain.  As  regi 
mental  quartermaster,  and  temporarily  on  a  bachelor 
status,  he  had  more  room  in  his  quarters  than  other 
comrades,  and  visiting  officers,  as  a  consequence,  be 
came  his  charge  and  guests.  Coming  and  going  all 
the  time  these  were  many.  Coming  and  staying  for 

126 


PEACE— THE  PACIFIC  COAST  AND  TROUBLE 

several  weeks  was  George  B.  McClellan,  of  the  Engi 
neers,  with  whom  Grant  had  served  in  happier  days  in 
Mexico,  and  McClellan  noted  with  concern  the  occa 
sional  over-indulgence  of  his  host — the  First  Classman 
who  had  been  so  cheery  and  kind  to  him  when  he  was 
a  "  plebe."  All  this  was  to  have  its  weight  in  days  to 
come. 

It  was  not  that  Grant  drank  much,  as  explained  by 
his  most  devoted  friends.  The  trouble  was  that  a  very 
little  would  flush  that  fair  complexion  of  his  and  thicken 
his  never  glib  or  lively  tongue.  On  far  less  liquor  than 
many  a  comrade  carried  without  a  sign,  Grant  would 
appear  half  stupefied.  At  Columbia  Barracks,  with  no 
guard,  drills  or  parade  duties  to  attend,  with  practically 
no  one  to  supervise  (for  the  quartermaster  had  scant 
occasion  to  appear  before  the  colonel),  the  matter  at 
tracted  no  official  notice.  Then  one  day  came  the  news 
that  "  Perfect "  Bliss  had  passed  away,  and  that  his 
company,  long  commanded  by  its  first  lieutenant,  and 
now  stationed  at  Fort  Humboldt,  would  have  a  new  cap 
tain  and  commander — that  after  years  of  service  as 
quartermaster,  and  away  from  all  the  starch  and  buck 
ram,  pomp  and  circumstance,  fuss  and  feathers  of  mili 
tary  life,  Captain  Grant  was  to  step  at  once  into  the 
presence  of  a  soldier  of  the  old  school — a  commander 
in  every  sense  of  the  word,  "  the  martinet  of  the  army  " 
some  went  so  far  as  to  call  one  of  the  most  thorough 
gentlemen  and  admirable  officers  that  ever  wore  our 
uniform — Brevet  Lieutenant-Colonel  Robert  C.  Buch 
anan,  then  Captain  Fourth  Infantry,  commanding  the 
little  post  at  Humboldt  Bay. 

There  are  three  versions  of  the  trouble  that  speedily 
followed.  In  order  to  reach  the  new  post  Grant  had 
first  to  go  away  down  the  coast  to  San  Francisco,  and 
there  take  a  coastwise  vessel  north  again.  His  new 
commission  was  dated  July  5th,  but  it  was  September 
before  he  could  transfer  all  funds,  papers  and  property 

127 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

to  his  successor,  John  Withers,  of  Mississippi.  It  was 
later  when  he  reached  San  Francisco,  and  as  coasters 
were  few,  and  dependent  on  wind  and  tide,  it  was  much 
later  when  he  finally  reached  Fort  Humboldt,  and 
Buchanan  took  umbrage  at  that  to  begin  with.  Then 
Buchanan  was  a  man  who  in  every  look  and  step  and 
gesture  was  the  precise  and  punctilious  soldier.  His 
uniform  fitted  him  like  a  glove ;  his  equipments  were 
always  spick  and  span.  When  he  spoke  to  a  senior  in 
rank,  his  heels  clicked  together  and  he  stood  at  salute, 
and  so  he  expected  the  juniors  should  stand  before  him. 
It  was  the  writer's  privilege  to  serve  in  subaltern  days 
under  that  gifted  soldier's  command,  to  hold  him  in  ad 
miration  and  esteem  unbounded.  The  daily  "  matinee  " 
at  which  Buchanan,  then  Colonel  of  the  First  Infantry, 
assembled  all  the  officers  in  garrison,  and  the  prompt 
dressing  down  he  administered  to  any  officer  who  pre 
sumed  to  pick  up  a  newspaper,  who  dared  to  yawn,  or 
who  had  the  hardihood  to  glance  out  of  the  nearest 
window,  were  admirable  in  their  effect  upon  the  laggard 
or  the  slouchy  among  his  subordinates.  And  all  these 
traits  he  had  as  commander  at  Fort  Humboldt,  and 
this  was  the  man  whom  Grant  had  now  to  serve. 
Between  two  soldiers  of  such  variant  types  there  was  no 
possibility  of  sympathy.  Buchanan  had  no  tolerance  for 
weakness  of  any  kind.  The  deeds  of  daring,  devotion 
and  soldiership  of  the  highest  order  that  had  made  Grant 
famous  in  the  Fourth  were  all  apparently  forgotten. 
The  story  told  the  writer  by  one  of  the  oldest  in  the  old 
Fourth,  and  one  of  the  fondest  friends  Grant  ever  had 
— and  he  had  them  then  by  dozens  and  later  by  tens  of 
thousands — was  to  the  effect  that  after  a  warning  on 
one  occasion,  Buchanan  had,  on  a  second,  called  upon 
the  captain  to  place  in  his,  the  post  commander's  hands, 
his  written  resignation,  with  the  understanding  that 
should  there  be  another  lapse,  that  paper  would  in 
evitably  go  forward  "  Approved." 

128 


PEACE— THE  PACIFIC  COAST  AND  TROUBLE 

"  Grant  was  well  nigh  sick  of  it  all,  anyhow,"  as 
his  fellows  said.  That  winter  of  loneliness  at  Humboldt, 
with  the  home  letters  full  of  love  and  yearning  from  his 
fair,  young  wife,  and  the  prattle  of  his  baby  boy  of 
which  she  told  him,  seem  to  have  determined  and  de 
cided  him.  The  captaincy  was  worth  just  then  about 
thirteen  hundred  a  year.  If  he  could  not  make  at  least 
two  thousand  farming,  engineering  or  teaching  mathe 
matics,  he  was  better  under  the  sod.  There  came  a  day 
when  Buchanan  saw  reason  to  forward  that  resignation, 
dated  July  3ist,  1854,  and  to  the  sorrow  of  many  a 
fellow  who  had  learned  to  love  his  simple  nature  and 
straightforward  ways,  "  Old  Sam "  Grant  bade  adieu 
to  Humboldt,  went  direct  to  San  Francisco  and,  eager 
to  rejoin  the  dear  ones  at  St.  Louis,  took  the  first 
steamer  he  could  catch  for  home.  To  him  and  to  the 
men  who  best  knew  him  he  was  quitting  the  service  be 
cause  the  life  and  isolation  away  from  family  and  fire 
side  had  become  insupportable.  To  many  a  senior,  to 
many  a  soldier,  and  to  heaven  only  knows  how  many  a 
citizen  thereafter,  it  was  given  out  and  understood  that 
he  left  the  army  because  he  had  to.  Of  the  former  were 
such  sturdy  Fourth  Infantrymen  as  C.  C.  Augur,  a 
Christian  gentleman  and  soldier,  Henry  M.  Judah,  who 
stood  by  him  in  his  sorrows  at  Humboldt,  "  Davy " 
Russell,  of  the  Class  of  '45,  Macfeely,  of  the  Class  of 
'50,  Henry  C.  Hodges,  of  '51,  one  of  the  most  soldierly 
men  of  his  day,  who  still  lives  to  tell  of  Grant  as  the 
most  truthful  man  he  ever  knew.  There  were  Kautz, 
of  his  old  Georgetown  home,  who  served  with  him  at 
Vancouver,  and  George  Crook,  who  lived  with  him 
awhile  at  Humboldt,  both  of  '52,  and  then  just  after  he 
left  there  came  to  join  that  array  of  Grant's  friends  and 
backers,  the  little  giant  of  the  Class  of  '53,  with  his  snap 
ping  black  eyes  and  quick,  abrupt  manner — like  Kautz 
and  Crook  and  Grant,  a  Buckeye  to  the  core — Phil 
Sheridan  by  name.  It  was  never  safe  to  say  in  presence 
9  129 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

of  such  as  these  that  "  Sam  "  Grant  had  to  quit  the 
army.  There  were  those  among  them  who  could  not 
forgive  it  in  Bonneville  and  Buchanan  that  he  had  been 
permited  to  go  at  all. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  were  men  of  rank  and  dis 
tinction  in  and  about  San  Francisco  at  the  time,  some 
of  whom  accepted  the  official  side  of  the  story  and 
would  seek  no  other  explanation,  nor  for  years  would 
accept  any  other  estimate  of  the  humbled  and  sad- faced 
officer  who  for  a  few  days  hovered  about  the  city.  Of 
such  was  Halleck,  the  prosperous  and  successful  lawyer, 
of  such  was  not  the  recently  resigned  Tecumseh  Sher 
man,  just  then  trying  banking  as  a  starter,  the  man  to 
whom  Grant  might  readily  have  appealed  for  aid  had 
he  not  been  too  sensitive  and  proud. 

There  were  two  men  in  San  Francisco,  as  one  of 
his  biographers  declares,  who  owed  him  a  little  money, 
and  both  of  them  were  penniless  when  he  applied  to 
them  for  payment.  Almost  every  dollar  he  could  hope 
to  get,  therefore,  was  in  an  order  for  extra  pay  for 
court-martial  services,  and,  because  of  some  little  techni 
cal  flaw,  the  paymaster  refused  to  cash  it. 

To  a  clerk  in  the  depot  quartermaster's  office,  who 
well  knew  Grant  as  regimental  quartermaster,  he  was 
indebted  for  the  only  aid  that  came  to  him  in  all  that 
crowded  city.  It  was  he  who  cashed  the  draft,  he  who 
secured  a  suitable  stateroom  in  the  returning  side- 
wheeler  bound  for  Panama,  and  who  sympathetically 
bade  Grant  farewell.  To  the  few  of  the  Fourth  whom 
he  had  seen  ere  leaving  Humboldt  Grant  had  said,  "If 
you  hear  from  me  again  it  will  probably  be  as  a  well- 
to-do  fanner."  To  this  humble  friend  in  the  depart 
ment  he  said  at  parting :  "  I  could  not  have  hoped  for 
such  comfort  as  this  stateroom,  nor  do  I  know  how  I 
can  ever  repay  your  kindness,  but  strange  things  have 
happened  and  may  again." 

Strange  things  did  happen.  Simon  Bolivar  Buckner, 
130 


PEACE— THE  PACIFIC  COAST  AND  TROUBLE 

of  the  Class  of  '44,  who  fought  almost  side  by  side  with 
him  at  Molino,  and  who,  like  him,  would  not  touch  a 
brevet  that  told  of  Contreras,  had  been  made  captain 
and  commissary  and  stationed  in  New  York,  and  there 
he  was  when  Grant  arrived,  practically  penniless,  and 
Buckner  it  was  whose  purse  was  placed  at  Grant's  dis 
posal  to  take  him  to  that  distant  home,  Buckner  it  was 
to  whom  Grant  had  to  dictate  unconditional  surrender 
in  less  than  ten  years  thereafter,  and  then  to  tender 
every  dollar  in  his  well-filled  wallet  to  his  prisoner  and 
friend  and  former  benefactor. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  USES  OF  ADVERSITY 

NOR  were  the  stories  accepted  at  home,  either  at 
Georgetown  or  at  White  Haven,  that  Grant's  "  habits  " 
had  been  at  the  bottom  of  his  worries  and  troubles  in 
the  army.  In  point  of  fact,  those  were  days  in  which 
the  use  of  alcoholic  liquor  was  by  no  means  a  custom 
honored  in  the  breach  rather  than  in  the  observance. 
Whiskey  of  excellent  quality  was  part  of  the  prescribed 
stores  of  the  military  service,  was  sold  to  officers  and 
through  them  even  to  the  men,  at  a  very  moderate  price  ; 
something  under  twenty-five  cents  would  buy  a  gallon. 
Whiskey  was  habitually  served  at  many  a  leading 
western  hotel,  a  little  glassful  as  an  appetizer  appearing 
beside  each  plate  at  dinner  time.  Wine  flowed  freely 
at  every  public  function,  and  whiskey,  rum  and  brandy 
had  been  served  in  tubs  at  certain  presidential  fetes  on 
the  White  House  lawn.  There  were  strong  advocates  of 
total  abstinence  in  the  line  of  the  army,  as  General 
Hitchcock  records  of  the  Third  Infantry,  just  before 
the  Mexican  war;  but  in  civil  life,  in  the  learned  pro 
fessions,  and  notably  the  law,  in  statecraft,  politics  and 
even  the  halls  of  congress,  the  total  abstainer  was  a 
rara  avis — the  occasional  over-indulgence  by  no  means 
rare.  In  the  service  the  story  was  still  told  of  that  most 
gallant  colonel  whom  Hitchcock  found,  on  his  home 
ward  way  from  Mexico,  dying  in  New  Orleans,  the 
man  who  defended  Fort  Sandusky  with  such  furious 
personal  vim  and  fiery  example  as  to  enable  him  with 
one  gun  and  a  handful  of  men  to  thrash  a  force  ten  times 
his  own  in  numbers.  Long  years  thereafter  when  com 
plaint  was  made  to  the  President  and  Commander-in- 
chief  of  the  major's  intemperance,  "  Old  Hickory " 

132 


THE  USES  OF  ADVERSITY 

turned  upon  the  complainants  with  indignant  protest: 
"  That  man  has  done  enough  to  entitle  him  to  get  drunk 
every  day  of  his  life  if  he  wants  to,  and,"  with  a  bang 
of  his  fist  on  the  table,  "  by  the  Eternal,  the  United 
States  shall  pay  for  his  whiskey !  "  Long  years  later 
still,  the  gentlest,  most  patient,  yet  withal  the  wisest  of 
our  presidents  was  moved  to  endorse,  upon  a  somewhat 
similar  complaint  against  the  man  upon  whom  he 
leaned  in  prayerful  hope :  "  I  cannot  spare  this  man — he 
fights." 

The  homecoming  was  sweet  and  hope  was  still  high 
when  Grant  rejoined  the  household  in  Missouri.  Colo 
nel  Dent  had  never  fancied  for  his  daughter  a  life  in 
the  army,  and  the  year  just  gone  by,  '53,  had  seen  many 
resignations  from  the  service  of  men  confident  of  suc 
cess  in  other  fields.  Brother  Fred  had  recently  written 
that  their  classmate,  C.  S.  Hamilton,  had  tired  of  the 
service  and  gone  to  farming  in  Wisconsin,  and  Hamilton 
had  never  had  Grant's  practical  experience  in  planting, 
ploughing  and  caring  for  the  stock.  Only  a  dozen  miles 
out  from  St.  Louis  lay  an  unbroken  tract  of  woodland 
which  had  been  given  to  Julia  Dent,  and  the  very  autumn 
of  his  return  Grant  himself  set  sturdily  to  work  to  fell 
the  timber,  clear  the  land,  build  a  little  log  homestead 
for  the  wife  and  babies,  and  with  the  spring  of  '55  was 
almost  happily,  as  in  boy  days,  holding  the  plough  and 
putting  in  long  hours  seeding  and  planting.  He  wrote 
hopeful  letters  to  the  father  and  mother  and  sisters  at 
home.  He  worked  as  hard  as  any  of  the  hands  he  was 
able  to  hire.  He  had  to  have  a  little  help  from  father, 
and  probably  father-in-law,  for  the  purchase  or  hire  of 
horses,  mules  and  implements,  but  if  his  crops  turned 
out  as  his  father's  always  had  in  Georgetown,  it  would 
be  but  a  matter  of  three  years  when  he  could  be  free 
from  debt  and  doing  well. 

In  those  days  he  was  far  happier  than  he  had  been 
in  California.  During  the  winter  he  drove  his  cord 

133 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

wood  into  town  and  sold  it  in  open  market,  and  then 
drove  cheerily  back  to  the  little  homestead  and  the  grow 
ing  family.  On  one  of  these  occasions,  in  the  rough  garb 
of  the  farmer,  whip  in  hand,  he  met  his  friend  and  class 
mate,  J.  J.  Reynolds,  another  of  the  recently  resigned,  and 
the  possessor  of  a  professorship,  and  Reynolds  and  a 
little  bevy  of  army  men  joyously  welcomed  "  Old  Sam  " 
to  the  Planters  Hotel,  and,  as  was  so  many  a  year  the 
custom,  clinked  their  glasses  in  cordial  greeting,  but 
Grant  declined.  During  those  few  years  from  '54  to  '57, 
while  still  strong  and  hopeful,  he  found  his  comfort 
in  his  home,  poor  and  crude  though  it  was,  and  could 
not  be  induced,  it  was  claimed  for  him,  even  on  these 
week-day  excursions  to  St.  Louis,  to  tamper  with  drink. 

But  the  crops  never  rewarded  the  labor  given  to 
them,  and  still  he  struggled  on,  growing  a  little  grim 
now  and  more  stoop-shouldered  from  much  bending 
over  farm  work.  He  leased  "  Hard  scrabble  "  in  the 
winter  of  '57  and  8,  and  took  the  old  Dent  farm,  where 
in  March  he  worked  three  darkies,  and  had  one  hundred 
and  forty  acres  planted  with  corn  and  wheat,  oats  and 
potatoes,  and  again  there  came  promise  of  success.  And 
then,  as  fate  would  have  it,  the  old  enemy  of  his  boy 
days,  fever  and  ague,  came  and  laid  him  by  the  heels, 
and  with  that  blow  went  out  the  last  hope  he  had  of 
making  even  a  living  at  the  farm. 

They  sold  the  stock,  implements  and  supplies  for 
what  they  could  get,  and  the  following  spring  moved  to 
a  very  humble  roof  in  town,  and  once  again  Grant  strove 
to  find  a  new  way  of  providing  for  the  wife  and  little 
ones.  And  now  times  became  hard  indeed,  and  the 
sharp,  stern  lesson  of  adversity  was  being  forced  upon 
him  with  every  succeeding  day.  He  entered  into  part 
nership  with  a  relation  of  the  Dents.  Real  estate  and 
collections  was  the  new  venture.  Grant  was  no  failure 
as  a  farmer,  but  as  a  collector  he  was  simply  a  "  flat." 


THE  USES  OF  ADVERSITY 

Any  "  hard  luck  "  story  would  arouse  his  sympathies 
and  disarm  him.  The  partnership  soon  lapsed. 

He  made  an  effort  to  obtain  the  appointment  of 
county  engineer,  backed  by  some  few  excellent  names, 
and  that  office  he  could  undoubtedly  well  have  filled, 
but  it  was  given  to  one  of  far  more  political  influence. 
Grant  was  practically  "  down  and  out "  when  he  made 
his  final  appeal  to  his  father,  and  was  told  that  the  only 
thing  in  sight  was  a  clerkship  at  eight  hundred  dollars  a 
year  in  the  country  store  his  younger  brothers  were  then 
conducting  at  Galena,  Illinois. 

Burdened  with  care  and  more  debts  and  troubles,  he 
moved  the  family  to  the  lead  regions,  found  a  cheap  and 
not  too  comfortable  house  near  the  outskirts,  furnished 
it  as  best  he  could,  and  then  the  man  honored  of  all  at 
Monterey  and  Molino,  the  dashing  horseman  of  the 
Fourth  Infantry,  found  himself  bending  over  the  desk 
or  plodding  about  among  the  shelves  and  counters, 
more  than  ever  out  of  his  element,  growing  with  each 
day  more  and  more  sad,  silent,  and,  though  about  the 
fireside  he  strove  to  hide  it,  more  despondent  than  even 
when  racked  with  fever  and  the  pangs  of  ague. 

The  brothers  found  him  of  no  earthly  account  at 
driving  bargains  or  tending  store.  He  could  keep  books 
after  a  fashion  and  do  some  of  the  heavy  work  in  hand 
ling  the  miscellaneous  stock.  His  clothing  was  poor 
and  shabby  now,  his  hair  and  beard  grew  long  and 
ragged. 

A  man  who  later  came  well  nigh  to  worship  him,  a 
would-be  soldier  even  then,  told  the  writer  that  when  he 
heard  there  was  a  Mexican  war  man — a  West  Pointer — 
come  to  town  and  working  in  his  father's  old  "  general 
merchandise  "  store,  bossed  by  his  younger  brothers,  it 
excited  curiosity  and  longing  to  see  him.  "  I  went 
round  to  the  store,"  he  said,  "  it  was  a  sharp  winter 
morning,  and  there  wasn't  a  sign  of  a  soldier  or  one  that 
looked  like  a  soldier  about  the  shop.  But  pretty  soon 

135 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

a  farmer  drove  up  with  a  lot  of  hides  on  his  sleigh,  and 
went  inside  to  dicker,  and  presently  a  stoop-shouldered, 
brownish  bearded  fellow,  with  a  slouch  hat  pulled  down 
over  his  eyes,  who  had  been  sitting  whittling  at  the 
stove  when  I  was  inside,  came  out,  pulling  on  an  old  light- 
blue  soldier's  overcoat.  He  flung  open  the  doors  lead 
ing  down  into  the  cellar,  laid  hold  of  the  top  hide, 
frozen  stiff  it  was,  tugged  it  loose,  towed  it  over  and 
slung  it  down  the  chute.  Then  one  by  one,  all  by  him 
self,  he  heaved  off  the  rest  of  them,  a  ten  minutes' 
tough  job  in  that  weather,  until  he  had  got  the  last  of 
them  down  the  cellar ;  then  slouched  back  into  the  store 
again,  shed  the  blue  coat,  got  some  hot  water  off  the 
stove  and  went  and  washed  his  hands,  using  a  cake  of 
brown  soap,  then  came  back  and  went  to  whittling  again, 
and  all  without  a  word  to  anybody.  That  was  my  first 
look  at  Grant,  and  look  at  him  now ! " 

They  sent  him  around  to  neighboring  towns  collect 
ing,  occasionally.  It  was  cheaper  than  hiring  a  lawyer, 
and  they  were  sure  of  getting  absolutely  reliable  re 
ports,  even  if  they  did  not  always  get  returns.  People 
in  Jo  Daviess  County  became  quite  accustomed  to  the 
sight  of  "  Cap  Grant,"  as  they  called  him,  but  very  few 
made  his  acquaintance ;  especially  was  this  the  case 
among  the  professional  men.  During  that  hard  year 
of  humility  and  servitude  in  1860  his  spirits  were  ap 
parently  at  the  lowest  ebb.  He  seemed  to  shrink  within 
himself.  It  was  again  said  that  he  sought  comfort 
occasionally  in  drink.  It  was  told  that  when  no  more 
money  could  be  had  from  father  or  brothers,  and  there 
was  many  a  need  at  home,  he  borrowed  here  and  there 
among  the  town  folk — men  who  little  dreamed  they  were 
casting  bread  upon  the  waters.  He  was  sad  and  shabby, 
both,  as  the  presidential  election  came  on  and  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  to  try  conclusions  once  again  with  his  old 
opponent  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  both  of  Illinois.  There 
was  little  talk  of  other  candidates  in  Jo  Daviess  County. 

136 


THE  USES  OF  ADVERSITY 

In  '56  Grant  had  voted  for  Buchanan,  believing  that 
in  the  bitter  feeling  over  the  slavery  question  the  country 
would  go  to  pieces  were  the  abolitionist,  Fremont,  to 
be  chosen.  Moreover,  Grant  had  little  faith  in  Fremont. 
He  might  have  voted  for  Douglas  in  the  fall  of  1860 
had  he  lived  long  enough  in  Galena  to  vote  at  all.  He 
held  aloof  from  politics  and  from  public  meetings.  He 
seemed  to  shrink  from  companionship  of  any  kind  save 
that  of  his  wife  and  children.  There  were  four  of  the 
latter  now,  and  it  is  told  that  the  sweet- faced  little  daugh 
ter  was  the  only  one  who  could  banish  the  look  of  care 
and  worry  from  the  aging  face.  He  took  but  little  interest 
in  the  campaign.  He  was  a  negative  quantity  in  that 
community  until  after  Lincoln  was  declared  elected, 
until  South  Carolina,  in  a  rage,  renounced  her  allegiance 
to  the  sisterhood  of  States  and,  one  after  another,  the 
Southern  commonwealths  followed  in  her  lead.  Then 
of  a  sudden  the  silent  man  at  the  store  became  restless 
and  eager  and,  in  answer  to  questions,  began  to  say 
things  other  men  repeated,  and  citizens  who  had 
hitherto  only  curiously  glanced  at  "  Cap  "  Grant  as  he 
went  his  weary  way  about  their  streets,  took  to  stop 
ping  him  and  asking  more  questions,  and  telling  each 
other  of  what  the  former  army  officer  said.  "  He  knows 
what  he's  talking  about,  too."  And  so  it  happened  that 
leading  men  like  Washburne  and  Chetlain,  and  that 
keen  young  lawyer  Rawlins,  took  notice  of  him,  and 
sought  him  out.  It  began  to  look  as  though  such  as  he 
might  be  more  than  useful  if  a  clash  should  come. 

And  then  suddenly  it  came,  and  with  the  news  of 
Sumter  and  the  humiliation  of  the  Flag,  Illinois  woke 
up,  as  did  the  entire  North,  and  Jo  Daviess  County 
would  at  once  have  sprung  to  arms  had  there  been  arms 
to  which  to  spring. 

There  were  half  a  hundred,  perhaps — old,  altered 
"  flintlocks,"  in  the  hands  of  a  militia  company,  whose 
captain,  making  sorry  work  of  drill  one  day,  was  moved 

137 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

to  ask  "  Cap  "  Grant  if  he  wouldn't  show  them  how 
such  and  such  a  thing  was  done  in  the  "regulars."  And 
then  occurred  a  transformation.  The  instant  that  shy, 
silent,  undeniably  slouchy  store  clerk  took  the  sword 
and  his  station  in  their  front,  he  straightened  up  like  a 
young  pine,  his  voice  rang  out  full,  firm  and  clear.  With 
the  ease  and  .assurance  of  old  habit  he  explained  in 
quick,  terse  words  the  movement  to  be  executed  and 
gave  the  requisite  commands.  That  night  in  Galena 
"  Cap  "  Grant  was  the  most  talked  of  man  in  town, 
and  when  a  few  days  later,  after  the  mayor  had 
"  fluked  "  at  the  first  great  public  meeting,  and  another 
one  was  held  at  which  Washburne  and  Rawlins  were  to 
speak,  nothing  would  do  but  "  Cap  "  Grant  should  pre 
side,  and  here  was  where  they  erred.  It  was  one  thing 
for  a  West  Pointer  to  drill  a  company:  it  was  another 
to  preside  at  a  public  meeting.  Ease,  assurance,  even 
voice  was  gone.  Grant  made  a  failure  of  it,  as  he  knew 
he  would,  for  he  had  vainly  sought  to  decline. 

Accustomed  to  gauge  their  fellow  citizens,  after  our 
worthy  American  fashion,  by  their  utterances  on  the 
stump  or  rostrum,  the  good  folk  of  Galena  promptly 
lost  what  little  interest  they  had  begun  to  feel  in  Grant. 
The  man  who  could  not  make  himself  heard  in  town 
meeting  would  probably  never  be  heard  of  outside  the 
county.  Moreover,  the  scant  respect  with  which  the 
brothers  treated  him — though  Simpson  was  three,  and 
Orvil  Lynch  thirteen  years  his  junior — had  had  its 
effect  upon  the  public  mind.  Grant  had  reached  the 
low- water  mark  of  his  fame  and  fortunes  by  the  time 
the  great  war  came  on,  and  yet  he  tells  us  that  he 
never  despaired,  never  gave  up  hope  that  all  might  yet 
come  well;  and  yet  we  have  been  told  that  in  spite  of 
their  poverty  Mrs.  Grant  has  declared  that  she,  too,  was 
hopeful  and  confident,  and  that  her  Galena  days  were 
among  the  happiest  she  ever  knew.  The  children,  who 
had  been  so  ill  at  the  farm  in  St.  Louis,  were  now  strong 

138 


££  v*& 


THE  USES  OF  ADVERSITY 

and  well — that  was  one  thing — and  whatever  may  have 
been  the  secret  fears  and  misgivings  of  the  father,  they 
were  never  allowed  to  affect  his  gentle  ways  about  the 
house.  It  was  hard  to  feel  that  he  was  capable  of  far 
better  things  than  the  country  store  business,  yet  to  be 
considered  by  his  juniors  unfit  even  for  that.  It  was 
hard  to  have  come  down  to  being  almost  dependent 
upon  the  father  and  the  brothers,  to  have  to  overdraw 
his  account  some  fifteen  hundred  dollars,  to  have  to 
bring  his  wife  away  from  her  own  and  to  place  her 
among  aliens  and  strangers.  It  was  hard  in  fact  to 
have  to  leave  Ohio  or  Missouri,  in  both  of  which  he 
had  known  much  better  days,  and  to  be  buried  here  in 
the  lead  mines. 

And  yet  it  would  seem  as  though  it  was  all  part  of 
a  providential  plan.  That  move  to  Galena  was  the  step 
ping  stone  to  Springfield,  to  the  presence  of  the  war 
governor  of  Illinois,  to  opportunity  at  last,  and  then  hav 
ing  "  hitched  his  wagon  to  a  star,"  on  to  Belmont,  Don- 
elson,  Vicksburg,  Chattanooga,  the  command-in-chief, 
the  close  at  Appomattox,  the  presidency,  the  world 
wide  honors  that  followed,  and  finally — martyrdom  and 
immortality. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
SOLDIER  A  SECOND  TIME 

THE  President's  stirring  call,  first  for  seventy-five 
thousand  militia  to  defend  the  capital,  and  then  for  five 
hundred  thousand  volunteers,  had  met  instantaneous  re 
sponse  in  the  North.  Illinois  had  answered  in  a  blaze 
of  patriotic  fervor,  and  from  almost  every  county  her 
crude,  quickly-organized,  companies  were  being  rushed 
to  the  various  rendezvous.  The  women  were  as  pa 
triotic  as  the  men.  They  of  Galena  and  Jo  Daviess 
County  sought  to  send  their  contingent  properly  uni 
formed,  and  here,  at  least,  was  something  "  Cap  "  Grant 
might  do.  The  women,  it  seems  had  not  an  exalted 
opinion  of  that  veteran  officer  of  the  Mexican  war, 
principally  because,  as  one  of  them  expressed  it,  "  he 
couldn't  speak  up  like  a  man  in  town  meeting,"  but  he 
ought  to  know  about  uniforms,  and  he  did.  In  this 
wise  it  was  ordained  that  the  first  war  service  of  the 
ultimate  commander-in-chief  was  the  choosing  of 
the  cloth,  such  as  was  to  be  had,  and  the  fashioning  of 
the  same  into  semi-martial  shape,  so  that  the  women 
could  stitch  and  sew  and  finally  send  off  their  company 
uniformly  garbed  to  Springfield,  Captain  Chetlain  march 
ing  at  their  head,  sword  in  hand,  "  Cap  "  Grant,  carpet 
bag  in  hand,  humbly  bringing  up  the  rear.  He  was 
going  to  Springfield  to  see  if  there  were  not  some  way 
in  which  he  could  further  be  of  use.  He  could  easily 
have  been  captain  of  the  first  Galena  company — it  was 
conceded  that  he  knew  more  drill  than  any  of  them — 
but,  having  been  a  captain  of  regulars  and  schooled  at 
West  Point,  and  having  served  through  a  sharp  and 
hazardous  war,  he  knew  himself  to  be  fitted  for  much 
higher  command,  and  if  war  actually  came,  proposed 

140 


SOLDIER  A  SECOND  TIME 

to   seek   it.     First,   however,   he   would   try   the   State 
adjutant-general's  office  at  Springfield. 

Arriving  there  on  the  23rd  of  April,  he  came  exactly 
at  the  right  time.  Charged  with  the  duty  of  organizing 
half  a  dozen  raw  militia  regiments,  and  having  had 
dumped  within  their  doors  huge  bundles  of  blank  muster 
rolls,  morning  reports,  ration  returns  and  all  manner 
of  army  forms  and  papers,  the  like  of  which  none  of 
their  number  ever  before  had  seen,  the  adjutant-general 
and  his  clerks  were  utterly  at  a  loss.  The  Governor 
was  Richard  Yates,  one  of  the  immortals  whose  name 
is  ever  to  be  linked  with  the  great  war  executives, 
Andrew  of  Massachusetts,  Morgan  of  New  York, 
Curtin  of  Pennsylvania,  Morton  of  Indiana,  and  Den- 
nison  of  Ohio — the  men  upon  whom  Lincoln  mainly  re 
lied.  The  Governor  was  besieged  on  all  sides  with  ap 
plications  for  commissions,  and  they  came  as  a  rule 
from  men  who  were  brave,  patriotic  and  zealous,  no 
doubt,  but  who  had  had  no  experience  whatsoever.  The 
legislature  had  provided  for  the  enlistment  of  ten  ad 
ditional  regiments  in  case  they  should  be  required.  The 
newly  organized  companies,  nearly  six  score  of  them, 
elected  from  their  own  numbers  their  captains  arid 
lieutenants,  but  upon  the  shoulders  of  the  Governor  was 
saddled  the  heavy  responsibility  of  choosing  colonels, 
lieutenant-colonels,  majors  and  staff  officers.  The 
hotels  of  Springfield  were  thronged  with  eager  aspirants 
for  these  positions,  and  into  their  midst  that  April  even 
ing  came  this  diffident,  stoop-shouldered,  poorly-dressed 
stranger  from  up  among  the  lead  mines.  Accounts,  even 
of  Illinois  veterans  who  were  there  at  the  time,  differ 
largely  as  to  just  how  they  came  to  meet — the  Governor, 
burdened  with  the  cares  and  worries  of  State,  and  the 
grim- faced,  bearded  ex-officer  of  regulars.  Just  who 
brought  about  the  meeting,  or  how  it  was  brought  about, 
the  writer  cannot  determine,  so  confident  and  circum 
stantial  are  the  varying  accounts;  but  one  thing  is  cer- 

141 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

tain,  the  moment  that  brought  face  to  face  Governor 
"  Dick  "  Yates,  beloved  of  all  Illinois,  and  "Cap"  Ulysses 
Grant,  unknown  outside  of  Galena,  was  an  epoch  in  the 
history  of  these  United  States.  All  that  Grant  would 
say  of  or  for  himself  was  that  he  had  had  a  military 
education  at  West  Point  and  some  experience  in  cam 
paign.  He  was  asked  if  he  could  help  with  those 
papers  in  the  adjutant-general's  office,  and  he  thought 
he  could.  Without  being  much  of  a  clerk  he  knew,  at 
least,  how  they  should  be  made  out,  and  was  set  to 
work  forthwith  at  three  dollars  a  day — probably  more 
than  he  had  earned  at  anything  else  since  the  hour  he 
left  the  army. 

It  was  a  strange  condition  of  things.  In  spite  of  the 
fact  that  the  President  had  to  improvise  an  army  with 
which  to  suppress  the  most  formidable  insurrection  the 
world  has  ever  known,  Grant  had  been  of  the  opinion, 
because  there  were  still  so  many  devoted  lovers  of  the 
old  flag  and  of  the  Union  throughout  the  Southern 
States,  that  with  prompt  and  decided  action  the  Presi 
dent  could  and  should,  with  the  means  at  hand,  put  an 
end  to  the  matter  in  six  months.  He  practically  admits 
this  in  his  Memoirs.  He  had  served  much  with  South 
ern  men  and  in  the  South.  He  had  been  reared  in  the 
midst  of  Southern  sentiment.  He  had  married  a  slave 
holder's  daughter.  He  had  even  been  a  slaveholder 
himself.  When  it  came  to  pass  that  after  all  manner 
of  trials  and  vicissitudes,  he  was  compelled  to  move 
to  a  free  State,  he  was  embarrassed  as  to  what  to  do 
with  the  "  boy  "  his  father-in-law  had  given  Julia  Dent, 
his  wife.  "  I  can  get  three  dollars  a  month  for  him 
here,  perhaps/'  he  wrote  to  Jesse  Grant,  but  in  northern 
Illinois  he  might  get  nothing,  indeed  might  lose  him. 
Grant  was  so  strongly  a  Union  man  that,  like  Lincoln, 
he  would  see  the  Union  preserved,  even  if  slavery  were 
to  be  perpetuated. 

But  a  few  weeks'  association  with  the  exuberant 
142 


SOLDIER  A  SECOND  TIME 

volunteers  of  his  adopted  State  was  sufficient  to  stagger 
his  faith  in  the  possibility  of  an  early  end  to  the  rebel 
lion.  Officers  and  men  alike  were  ablaze  with  patriot 
ism,  but  ignorant  of  the  first  principles  of  military  in 
struction.  Regimental  camps  were  huge  town  meet 
ings.  There  was  splendid  material  for  the  work  be 
fore  them,  but  no  master  hand  to  mould,  to  train,  to  dis 
cipline.  The  Governor  presently  sent  Grant  to  muster 
into  the  State  service  the  new  regiments  in  southern 
Illinois,  and  what  he  saw  in  their  camps  convinced  him 
that  under  such  colonels,  no  matter  how  brave  and 
willing,  no  real  soldier  work  could  be  accomplished. 
He  presently  had  opportunity  to  revisit  St.  Louis,  and, 
together  with  him  who  was  his  senior  in  "  plebe  "  days, 
and  who  was  destined  to  become  the  greatest  and  nearest 
of  his  subordinates  within  another  year — with  Tecumseh 
Sherman,  fresh  from  his  parting  with  pupils  and 
faculty  of  the  Louisiana  University,  Grant  witnessed,  on 
the  loth  of  May,  the  first  clash  between  the  Union  and 
Secession  forces  in  the  city  streets.  That  served  further 
to  convince  him  that  time  would  be  required.  Late  in 
May,  being  utterly  opposed  to  the  methods  of  electing 
or  selecting  field  officers  in  vogue  in  Illinois,  and  being 
fully  determined  to  tender  his  services,  he  forwarded 
the  then  ignored,  but  now  famous  letter  which  is  given 
here  in  full : 

GALENA,  ILL.,  May  24,  1861. 
SIR: 

Having  served  for  fifteen  years  in  the  regular  army,  in 
cluding  four  years  at  West  Point,  and  feeling  it  the  duty  of 
every  one  who  has  been  educated  at  the  government  expense 
to  offer  their  services  for  the  support  of  the  government,  I 
have  the  honor  very  respectfully  to  tender  my  services  until 
the  close  of  the  war,  in  such  capacity  as  may  be  offered. 

I  would  say  in  view  of  my  present  age  and  length  of 
service,  I  feel  myself  competent  to  command  a  regiment,  if 
the  President  in  his  judgment  should  see  fit  to  intrust  one 
to  me.  Since  the  first  call  of  the  President  I  have  been  serving 

143 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

on  the  staff  of  the  Governor  of  this  state,  rendering  such  aid 
as  I  could  in  the  organization  of  our  state  militia,  and  I  am 
still  engaged  in  that  capacity.  A  letter  addressed  to  me  at 
Springfield,  Illinois,  will  reach  me. 

I  am  very   respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 

U.  S.  GRANT. 

By  this  time,  too,  Captain  John  Pope,  of  the  United 
States  Engineers,  had  been  sent  to  Springfield,  had  seen 
Grant  and  urged  him  to  seek  a  command.  Meantime, 
also,  there  were  new  regiments  coming  to  Springfield, 
among  them  the  Twenty-first,  organized  at  Mattoon 
on  the  Qth  of  May.  On  the  i5th  it  had  been  mustered 
into  the  State  service  for  one  month  by  Captain  Grant. 
A  lively,  hilarious  thousand  they  were,  and  a  hopeless 
task  it  was  to  keep  them  either  in  camp  or  order.  Grant 
found  opportunity  just  then  to  visit  his  father  at 
Covington,  and  talk  over  the  situation.  He  had  another 
object  in  going  thither:  his  comrade  of  the  Mexican 
war  days,  his  guest  for  some  weeks  at  Fort  Vancouver, 
George  B.  McClellan,  had  been  called  from  the  presi 
dency  of  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  Railway,  to  the  com 
mand  of  the  Ohio  militia,  with  the  State  rank  of  major- 
general,  followed  by  his  being  commissioned  almost  im 
mediately  by  the  President  as  a  major-general  in  the 
army  of  the  United  States — a  sudden  and  most  un 
looked-for  elevation.  Orders  from  Washington  as 
signed  McClellan  to  the  head  of  a  military  district 
including  the  States  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Missouri 
and  certain  adjacent  territory,  and  the  young  officer, 
only  thirty-five  years  of  age,  was  busily  engaged  in  the 
duties  of  this  new  and  important  command  when  Grant 
sought  an  interview,  spent  the  greater  part  of  two  days 
in  vain  endeavor  to  see  his  former  comrade,  sitting  the 
while  humble  and  unnoticed  in  the  hallway,  and  finally 
left  disappointed.  He  says  that  he  would  ask  nothing 
of  McClellan,  but  owns  that  he  hoped  McClellan  would 
tender  him  an  appointment  on  his  stafif. 

144 


SOLDIER  A  SECOND  TIME 

Fortune  had  reserved  him  for  a  far  better  fate.  The 
Twenty-first  Illinois  had  proved  much  too  tough  a 
proposition  for  any  of  the  officers  appointed  over  it. 
They  were  said  to  be  in  almost  mutinous  condition  when 
Governor  Yates  was  seized  with  an  inspiration.  If  any 
man  could  do  anything  with  them  it  was  probably  Cap 
tain  Grant,  and  a  telegram  went  forthwith  to  Covington 
tendering  him  the  colonelcy  of  the  recalcitrant  regiment. 
Back  came  the  answer :  "  I  accept  the  regiment  and 
will  start  immediately,"  and  on  Monday  afternoon,  June 
1 7th,  he  reached  Springfield  and  went  at  once  to  camp 
to  assume  command. 

It  had  been  planned  to  start  proceedings  with  an 
appeal  to  their  patriotism,  and  that  great  leader  and 
orator,  John  A.  Logan,  was  asked  by  the  Governor  to 
open  the  ball.  Beside  the  swarthy,  black-moustached, 
martial-looking  speaker  stood  the  new  colonel,  silent, 
travel-stained,  with  only  a  red  bandana  by  way  of  a 
sash  bound  loosely  about  the  waist  of  his  worn,  civilian 
sackcoat,  and  with  a  stick  in  lieu  of  a  sword.  Logan 
finished  in  a  glowing  apostrophe,  and  then,  after  the 
manner  of  the  sovereign  citizen  of  the  boundless  and 
unterrified  West,  the  men  of  the  Twenty-first  began  to 
shout  for  Grant.  "Grant!"  "Grant!"  "Colonel 
Grant !  "  "  Speech !  "  And  the  Colonel  stepped  quietly 
forward,  waited  for  the  tumult  to  subside,  and  in  pre 
cisely  four  words  made  the  demanded,  but  by  no  means 
the  expected,  address :  "  Go  to  your  quarters !  "  he  said, 
and,  too  much  astonished  for  further  words,  the  men 
obeyed. 

Eleven  days  later,  a  silent  and  reasonably  subordi 
nate  regiment  by  that  time,  the  Twenty-first  Illinois, 
Colonel  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  was  formally  mustered  into 
service  by  Captain  Thomas  G.  Pitcher,  U.  S.  Army. 
Five  years  later,  when  at  last  the  supervision  of  the 
United  States  Military  Academy  was  taken  from  the 
Engineers  and  thrown  open  to  the  entire  army,  the 
10  145 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

first  "  general "  of  our  service,  being  called  upon  to 
designate  the  first  superintendent  under  the  new  dis 
pensation,  laid  before  the  President  the  name  of  Thomas 
G.  Pitcher,  brevet  brigadier-general  U.  S.  Army. 

The  stories  of  Grant's  brief  and  memorable  service 
with  the  Twenty-first  are  innumerable.  Several  of  them 
seem  to  be  true.  He  was  the  first  man  to  open  their 
eyes  as  to  the  meaning  of  military  duty  and  discipline — 
perhaps  the  only  man  then  at  or  near  Springfield  who 
was  capable  of  doing  it.  In  the  ten  days  that  elapsed 
between  his  taking  command,  and  their  getting  march 
ing  orders,  a  remarkable  change  had  come  over  the 
Twenty-first.  The  bully  of  the  regiment  had  come  back 
from  town  one  evening  drunk,  defiant,  mutinous,  daring 
everybody  or  anybody  to  lay  a  hand  on  him.  His  com 
pany  officers  and  sergeants  strove  to  soothe  him,  to 
mollify  and  persuade,  which  made  him  only  more  in 
solent  and  defiant.  Grant  saw  the  trouble  from  afar, 
strolled  calmly  over  to  the  company  street,  made  his 
way  through  the  crowd,  and  with  one  well-delivered 
blow  and  without  a  word  stretched  the  bully  on  his 
back,  called  for  a  bayonet  and,  after  the  methods  of 
the  Mexican  war  days,  deftly  proceeded  to  gag  the 
rioter.  A  more  penitent  bully  Camp  Dick  Yates  never 
saw  than  the  tough  of  the  Twenty-first  when  finally 
released.  Nor  were  those  days  in  which  he  could  find 
sympathy  or  support  in  charging  his  colonel  with  brutal 
methods.  Even  the  rank  and  file  of  the  regiment  said, 
"  served  him  right." 

The  next  lesson  was  less  personal  in  its  application. 
The  Twenty-first,  it  seems,  took  kindly  to  whiskey,  and 
the  Colonel  one  day  got  wind  of  the  fact  that  many  a 
canteen  was  "  loaded."  Halt,  was  the  word,  and  then 
calmly  the  Colonel  proceeded  to  have  the  contents  of 
every  canteen  poured  out  into  the  thirsty  soil  of  Sanga- 
mon  County.  The  chaplain  tells  us  all  this,  so  it  must 
be  true. 

146 


SOLDIER  A  SECOND  TIME 

The  regiment  was  ordered  to  be  in  readiness  to 
march  at  6  A.M.,  and  the  Twenty-first,  as  had  been  their 
habit,  took  their  own  time.  Those  men  not  ready  were 
compelled  to  "  fall  in  "  just  as  they  stood  or  sat,  and, 
some  without  shoes,  some  without  caps  or  coats,  were 
put  through  an  hour's  work  before  being  allowed  to 
fall  out  and  get  their  entire  equipment.  In  a  week, 
though  the  drill  was  by  no  means  good,  the  discipline 
was  something  the  volunteers  of  Illinois,  since  the  days 
of  Baker's  brigade,  at  least,  had  never  seen  or  dreamed 
of.  Other  colonels  came  to  watch  the  methods  of  this 
calm,  resolute  Mexican  war  man  who  never  found  it 
necessary  to  get  excited  or  to  swear. 

Up  at  the  capitol  Governor  Yates  was  rejoicing  over 
the  success  of  his  appointee,  and  laughing  at  the 
croakers,  including  the  former  colonel,  who  had  pre 
dicted  the  Twenty-first  would  prove  too  tough  for  even 
a  veteran  regular  to  tackle.  There  was  another  man 
among  men,  Elihu  B.  Washburne,  of  Galena,  who  was 
watching  all  this  with  keen  interest  and  satisfaction. 
Both  Yates  and  Washburne  were  beginning  to  "  get  his 
measure,"  as  they  expressed  it,  when  sudden  orders 
came  from  Major-General  John  C.  Fremont,  then  com 
manding  at  St.  Louis,  to  send  the  Twenty-first  to  the 
Mississippi.  The  order  was  duly  transmitted  to  Grant 
as  colonel  commanding,  and  the  agent  of  the  railway 
presently  came  in  to  the  capitol  to  say  in  effect  that  he 
had  been  insulted.  "  I  went  out  and  asked  that  colonel 
how  many  passenger  and  box  cars  he  wanted  for  the 
regiment,  and  he  says  he  don't  want  any" 

The  adjutant-general  of  the  State,  therefore, 
thought  it  incumbent  on  him  to  go  out  to  the  camp 
and  remonstrate  with  the  regular  who  wouldn't  have 
dealings  with  a  railway  man. 

"  Will  there  be  any  railway  after  I  get  to  the  Missis 
sippi?"  asked  Grant,  and  the  adjutant-general  replied 
there  would  not.  "  Then,  as  my  men  must  march  after 

147 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

they  get  there,  I  mean  to  teach  them  how  before  we 
get  there.  We  march  to  Quincy.  That's  why  we  need 
no  cars." 

And  march  they  did,  only  five  miles  or  so  a  day  at 
first,  so  as  to  gradually  harden  and  accustom  the  men, 
teach  them  how  to  pack  wagons,  pitch  and  strike  camp, 
etc.  He  had  ten  days  in  which  to  make  the  trip,  and 
every  mile  was  a  lesson.  Once  a  dozen  of  the  men  got 
drunk  at  a  country  tavern,  and  the  Colonel,  imperturb 
able  as  ever,  never  addressed  a  word  of  rebuke  to  the 
offenders,  but  ordered  them  "  tied  up "  behind  the 
wagons  all  the  next  day's  march.  It  was  hard  to  say 
which  officer  by  this  time  most  admired  the  Colonel — 
the  worthy  chaplain  who  tells  of  these  effective  methods, 
"  regular,"  yet  irregular,  or  Lieutenant-Colonel  Alex 
ander,  whom  Grant  had  superseded  in  command.  Both 
these  men  were  devoted  Christians;  Alexander  died  at 
the  head  of  the  regiment  at  Chickamauga,  and  neither 
of  them  for  a  moment  would  have  dared  to  do  what 
Grant's  common  sense  dictated  as  the  only  way  to 
speedily  reduce  that  complex  command  to  discipline  and 
subordination.  Strange  as  it  may  seem,  the  men  them 
selves,  almost  as  speedily,  began  to  admire  and  swear  by 
the  man  who  never  swore  at  them,  yet  made  them  obey. 

A  brisk  month  of  marching  had  the  Twenty-first, 
and  for  many  a  day  they  followed  in  the  lead  of  that 
sunburned,  bearded,  stoop-shouldered,  shabbily-dressed, 
but  inflexible  master — shabbily  dressed  because  for  a 
time  he  could  get  no  uniform,  nor  suitable  mount.  No  less 
an  authority  than  General  Chetlain,  first  captain  of  the 
Galena  company,  tells  us  that  when  named  colonel  of 
the  Twenty-first,  Grant  asked  his  well-to-do  father  and 
brothers  to  advance  him  four  hundred  dollars  with 
which  to  purchase  the  necessary  outfit.  On  his  colonel's 
pay  he  could  readily  return  it  all  within  a  few  months, 
but  both  father  and  brothers  declined.  It  was  the 
junior  partner  of  the  firm  of  Jesse  R.  Grant  &  Company, 

148 


SOLDIER  A  SECOND  TIME 

Mr.  E.  A.  Collins,  who  had  taken  a  liking  to  the  elder 
brother,  in  spite  of  his  business  disqualifications,  who 
quietly  mailed  to  Colonel  Grant  the  draft  for  the  much- 
needed  money,  and  Grant  never  forgot  it. 

Not  until  they  had  been  some  days  in  Missouri, 
marching  hither  and  yon,  did  the  uniform  come,  and  the 
Colonel  was  able  to  exchange  the  rusty  cavalry  sabre  he 
had  picked  up  somewhere  about  Springfield  for  the 
regulation  sword  of  a  field  officer  of  Foot.  That  uni 
form  had  hardly  been  worn  a  week  before  there  came 
news  that  it  would  speedily  have  to  be  shed  in  favor  of 
another. 

Meantime  at  Washington  the  President  had  been 
busy  with  his  cabinet,  his  new  military  associates,  and 
a  countless  array  of  self -constituted  advisers,  in  the 
selection  of  the  generals  destined  to  lead  the  grand  army 
of  volunteers  now  called  into  service. 

On  April  1 5th  seventy-five  thousand  militia,  as  has 
been  said,  had  been  hurriedly  summoned,  and  in  mid 
July  their  time  would  expire.  On  May  3rd  five  hundred 
thousand  volunteers  had  been  summoned  to  arms,  and 
much  more  than  five  hundred  thousand  promptly  re 
sponded. 

Empowered  to  name  certain  new  major-generals  in 
the  regular  army,  Mr.  Lincoln  had  at  once  gone  outside 
of  the  line  of  promotion  therein,  and  made  his  prin 
cipal  selections  elsewhere.  In  April,  '61,  the  army  knew 
but  one  major-general,  the  veteran  Scott.  Of  brigadier- 
generals  it  had  John  E.  Wool,  W.  S.  Harney,  and  Edwin 
V.  Summer.  Dating  their  commissions  May  I4th,  the 
President  added  to  the  major-generals  of  the  army, 
George  B.  McClellan,  from  the  Ohio  militia  and  for 
merly  of  the  United  States  Engineers,  and  John  C. 
Fremont,  formerly  a  lieutenant-colonel  in  the  regular 
service,  an  explorer  and  frontiersman,  whose  chief 
claim  to  recognition  in  the  eyes  of  the  administration 

149 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

was  that  he  had  been  the  first  Republican  candidate  for 
the  presidency. 

Later,  to  date  from  August  iQth,  the  President 
named  Henry  W.  Halleck,  also  an  Engineer-graduate  of 
West  Point,  who  resigned  from  the  army  the  very  day 
after  Grant,  but  had  been  a  deep  student  and  a  volumi 
nous  writer  in  military  strategy  as  well  as  in  the  law. 

To  the  brigadier-generals  of  the  army,  with  date 
from  May  I4th,  the  President  added  Colonel  Joseph  K. 
F.  Mansfield,  Inspector-General,  and  Major  Irvin  Mc 
Dowell,  of  the  Adjutant-General's  Department.  Dat 
ing  from  May  I5th  were  appointed  as  brigadiers,  Major 
Robert  Anderson,  the  defender  of  Sumter,  and  on  the 
same  date,  as  quartermaster-general,  Colonel  Mont 
gomery  C.  Meigs,  also  William  S.  Rosecrans  of  Ohio, 
another  Engineer-graduate  who  had  resigned  just  be 
fore  Grant,  and  then  embarked  in  business  in  Cin 
cinnati. 

These  were  the  general  officers  of  the  regular 
service  at  the  orders  of  the  government  as  the  summer 
of  '6 1  wore  on.  Scott  was  still  on  duty  as  general-in- 
chief  at  Washington ;  McClellan  was  at  Cincinnati,  Fre 
mont  at  St.  Louis.  Halleck,  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war, 
was  in  California,  a  man  of  weath  and  distinction, 
and  major-general  of  the  California  militia.  It  was 
not  until  late  in  the  fall  of  1861  that  he  was  assigned  to 
a  command  in  the  East.  In  addition  to  these  appoint 
ments  in  the  permanent  establishment,  the  great  army 
of  volunteers  had  to  be  provided  with  generals  of  divi 
sion  and  brigade,  and  thereby  hangs  a  tale  that  de 
mands  a  chapter  of  its  own. 


CHAPTER  XV 
"THE  STARS  OF  SIXTY-ONE" 

FROM  the  day  that  Grant  took  command  of  the 
Twenty-first  he  began,  in  the  language  of  Governor 
Yates,  to  "  do  things."  His  regiment  progressed  rapidly 
in  discipline  and  efficiency.  His  officers  and  men  had 
found  their  master.  His  early  teachings  had  made 
them  prompt  at  all  duties  and  steady  on  the  march. 
Once  over  in  Missouri,  sent  hither  and  yon  at  first 
under  the  orders  of  Fremont,  striking  at  reported  camps 
of  "  rebel  troops  and  sympathizers,"  then  set  to  guard 
ing  the  Hannibal  and  St.  Joseph  Railway,  they  were 
rapidly  hardening  into  soldier  swing,  when  they 
presently  found  themselves  assembled  with  half  a  dozen 
other  regiments  to  meet  a  Confederate  force  alleged  to 
be  in  the  neighborhood  of  Mexico,  a  little  town  some 
fifty  miles  north  of  the  Missouri. 

Here  it  was  promptly  noted  that,  though  Grant  was 
junior  in  date  of  appointment  to  all  the  other  regimental 
commanders,  he  was,  nevertheless,  the  only  educated 
soldier  in  the  lot.  As  though  by  common  consent  he 
therefore  was  made  commander  of  the  improvised 
brigade.  He  owns  in  his  Memoirs  to  a  feeling  of  un 
easiness  on  the  march  upon  the  town  of  Florida,  Mis 
souri,  to  the  attack  of  a  force  under  one,  Tom  Harris, 
a  local  colonel  and  Confederate  of  much  repute.  When 
they  reached  Florida,  however,  Harris  and  his  men 
were  nowhere  to  be  found,  and  then,  said  Grant,  "  it 
occurred  to  me  that  Harris  had  been  as  much  afraid 
of  me  as  I  had  been  of  him.  This  was  a  view  of  the 
question  I  had  never  taken  before,  but  it  was  one  that 
I  never  forgot  afterward."  It  was  the  last  time  Grant 
felt  "  trepidation  "  in  close  contact  with  the  enemy,  and 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

it  is  well  that  he  learned  the  lesson  so  early  in  the  war. 

On  July  3 1st  his  headquarters  as  commander  of  the 
forces  in  that  disturbed  district  were  still  at  Mexico. 
Then  came  orders  to  shift  the  regiment  to  Ironton, 
Missouri,  via  St.  Louis,  and  it  was  in  St.  Louis,  on  the 
7th  of  August,  that  to  Grant  there  came  tremendous 
news.  Two  years  before  he  was  walking  those  streets 
friendless,  penniless  and  seeking  vainly  for  employ 
ment.  This  day  brought  the  tidings  that  he  had  been 
named  by  the  President  one  of  the  foremost  of  the 
brigadier-generals  of  volunteers. 

It  had  all  come  about  in  the  most  natural  way,  yet  the 
writer  can  well  remember  the  surprise,  the  comments, 
and  in  one  case  at  least,  the  rejoicing  among  regular 
officers  in  and  about  Washington  at  the  time.  To  many 
of  these  latter  he  was  still  "  Old  Sam  Grant "  of  the 
Fourth  Foot,  who  went  to  seed  somewhere  out  on  the 
Pacific  coast  after  the  Mexican  war.  They  could  hardly 
be  expected  to  know  what  Governor  Yates  knew,  and 
Elihu  Washburne,  and  John  Pope  of  the  Topographical 
Engineers,  and  through  them  the  Illinois  delegation  in 
Congress,  that  of  all  the  colonels  Illinois  had  put  into 
the  field  this  man  Grant  had  by  long  odds  shown  the 
highest  ability  and  soldiership.  He  had  taken  that 
"  Mattoon  mob,"  as  the  Twenty-first  had  been  described 
after  they  unhorsed  their  first  colonel,  had  marched  it, 
mastered  it,  and  withal  had  been  so  prompt,  efficient  and 
useful  in  northern  Missouri  that  even  Fremont  had 
been  able  to  see  it.  For  three  weeks  or  more,  Grant, 
in  fact,  had  been  exercising  the  functions  of  a  brigade 
commander,  and  was  even  then  under  orders  for  an 
important  command  to  the  southward. 

And  so  it  had  happened  that  when  the  President 
asked  the  Governor,  and  the  Illinois  delegation  in  Con 
gress,  to  recommend  half  a  dozen  of  the  Illinois  colonels 
for  appointment  as  brigadiers,  head  of  their  list  went  the 
name  of  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  and  presently,  seventeenth 

152 


I-'roiu  the  collection  of  !•".  II. 


U.  S.  GRANT  AS  A  BRIGADIER-GENERAL. 
NOVEMBER,   1861 


"THE  STARS  OF  SIXTY-ONE" 

in  the  array  of  new  brigadiers  heralded  to  the  nation 
through  the  columns  of  the  press,  the  eldest  son  of 
Jesse  Root,  the  humble  clerk  in  the  store  of  his  younger 
brothers,  found  it  necessary  to  order  a  new  uniform,  and 
an  expensive  one,  before  the  buttons  and  shoulder- 
straps  on  that  of  the  colonelcy  had  lost  their  pristine 
lustre. 

Grant  had  drawn  only  two  months'  pay  as  a  colonel 
when  he  read  in  the  St.  Louis  morning  papers  of  his 
promotion  to  brigadier-general,  and  now,  as  though  to 
confirm  all  that  Jesse  Root  had  ever  declared  as  to  the 
unbusinesslike  and  thriftless  methods  of  his  eldest  son, 
Grant  gave  away  that  colonel's  uniform  before  ever 
the  still  finer  and  costlier  one  had  come.  There  were 
some  few  weeks  in  which  Jesse  and  his  younger  sons 
were  shaking  their  heads  with  mournful  prophecy  as  to 
how  much  more  "  Ulyss  "  was  going  to  cost  them,  when 
he  began  sending  monthly  checks  from  Cairo,  at  which 
point  he  appeared  again  in  civilian  dress,  and  Colonel 
Dick  Oglesby,  of  the  Illinois  Volunteers,  being  in  com 
mand  and  in  consultation  with  various  civilian  callers, 
had  no  time  to  more  than  casually  nod  to  the  new 
comer  and  intimate  that  he  would  see  him  later,  and 
was  then  somewhat  mystified  to  find  himself  in  the 
presence  of  a  senior  who  had  utilized  the  few  minutes 
in  writing  an  order  assuming  command  and  sending 
Colonel  Dick  to  Bird's  Point.  And  before  this  episode 
had  occurred  that  other  with  Prentiss  at  Cape  Girar- 
deau,  wherein  Prentiss,  a  brigadier  in  his  own  right  and 
former  brigadier  of  militia,  had  virtually  declined  to 
obey  Grant's  order  to  halt  his  column  at  Jackson,  and 
was  deeply  aggrieved  at  being  required  to  countermarch 
to  the  designated  point,  where  he  dramatically  bade 
farewell  to  his  troops  and  hastened  to  St.  Louis  to  com 
plain  of  Grant's  unwarranted  "  assumption  of  au 
thority."  Prentiss  had  not  imagined  that  by  law  Grant's 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

years  of  service  in  the  regulars  made  him  the  senior  of 
all  the  Illinois  generals,  even  had  he  not  been  named 
foremost  on  the  list. 

And  Prentiss  was  no  more  aggrieved  or  surprised 
than  were  others,  ambitious,  eager,  patriotic  men  in  and 
out  of  the  regular  service.  It  is  interesting  to  note  the 
names  and  antecedents  of  those  whom  the  President 
and  his  advisers  decided  upon  that  summer  of  '61,  as  the 
leaders-to-be  of  that  vast  army  then  being  called  into 
the  field.  Those  named  for  the  permanent  establish 
ment,  the  regulars,  have  previously  been  given.  For  the 
volunteers,  dating  from  the  i6th  of  May,  three  major- 
generals  were  selected — Messrs.  John  A.  Dix,  of  New 
York,  famous  as  the  author  of  the  stirring  despatch: 
"  If  any  man  attempts  to  haul  down  the  American  flag, 
shoot  him  on  the  spot ;  "  Nathaniel  P.  Banks,  of  Massa 
chusetts,  long  the  distinguished  Speaker  of  the  House 
of  Representatives;  and  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  of  Massa 
chusetts,  conspicuous  as  a  militia  general  in  that  com 
monwealth,  and  as  having  accompanied  the  troops  to  the 
front,  and  opened  the  Annapolis  route  to  the  capital 
when  that  via  Baltimore  was  virtually  closed.  No  one 
of  their  number  could  be  said  to  have  either  military 
education  or  experience.  In  August  there  was  added  a 
fourth  major-general,  in  the  person  of  gallant  David 
Hunter,  long  years  of  the  regular  army,  a  graduate  of 
West  Point  in  '22,  and  a  division  commander  at  First 
Bull  Run,  where  he  had  been  painfully  wounded.  Much, 
therefore,  was  expected  of  Hunter.  In  September  the 
President  further  added  to  his  list  a  fifth,  the  Hon. 
Edward  D.  Morgan,  Governor  of  New  York,  and  there 
the  list  was  closed  for  the  year.  Early  in  February, 
1862,  for  all  manner  of  good  reasons,  one  more  name 
was  added  to  the  major-generals — that  of  the  gifted  and 
distinguished  old  soldier-scholar  of  whom  we  had  so 
much  to  say  during  the  Mexican  war — Ethan  Allen 
Hitchcock  of  Missouri,  and  six  days  after  that  an- 


"THE  STARS  OF  SIXTY-ONE" 

nouncement  came  one  to  which  the  entire  North  gave 
instant  and  vociferous  acclaim — the  first  major-general 
of  volunteers  made  and  appointed  for  the  first  signal 
victory  for  the  cause  of  the  Union,  and  the  letters  U.  S. 
to  his  name  were  heralded  far  and  wide  as  signifying 
to  all  enemies  or  opposers  of  the  Union  nothing  short  of 
"  unconditional  surrender."  Of  that  hereafter. 

The  summer  list  of  '61,  however,  contained  but  the 
four  first-named  as  bearing  division  rank.  The  array 
of  brigadiers  was  something  worth  studying.  Dating 
from  May  I7th,  and  in  order  of  rank  as  announced  by 
the  War  Department,  they  were  as  follows : 

1.  Colonel  David  Hunter,  Sixth  U.  S.  Cavalry. 

2.  Colonel  Sam  P.  Heintzelman,  Seventeenth  U.  S. 
Infantry. 

3.  Colonel  Erasmus  D.  Keyes,  Eleventh  U.  S.  In 
fantry. 

4.  Colonel  Andrew  Porter,  Sixteenth  U.  S.  Infantry. 

5.  Colonel  Fitz    John    Porter,    Fifteenth  U.  S.  In 
fantry. 

6.  Colonel  William  B.  Franklin,  Twelfth  U.  S.  In 
fantry. 

7.  Colonel  William  Tecumseh  Sherman,  Thirteenth 
U.  S.  Infantry. 

8.  Colonel  Charles  P.  Stone,  Fourteenth  U.  S.  In 
fantry. 

Now,  each  of  these  above-named  colonels  had  only 
been  appointed  as  such  to  regiments  only  just  authorized 
and  not  yet  organized.  The  colonels  of  the  veteran 
regiments  of  infantry,  cavalry  and  artillery,  were  left 
as  they  stood.  In  several  cases,  if  not  many,  they  were 
too  old  for  field  service. 

Continuing  the  list  we  find : 

9.  Lieut.-Colonel  Don  Carlos  Buell,  Adjutant-Gen 
eral's  Department,  U.  S.  A. 

10.  Lieut.-Colonel  Thomas  W.  Sherman,  Fifth  U.  S. 
Artillery. 

155 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

11.  Major  James  Oakes,  Second  U.  S.  Cavalry  (who 
declined). 

12.  Captain  -Nathaniel  Lyon,  Second  U.  S.  Infantry 
(killed  August   loth). 

13.  Captain  John  Pope,  Topographical  Engineers. 

14.  George  A.  McCall,  of  Pennsylvania  (Grant's  old 
captain  at  Palo  Alto). 

15.  William  R.  Montgomery,  of  New  Jersey,  and 
Colonel  First  New  Jersey  Volunteers. 

1 6.  Philip  Kearny,  of  New  Jersey,  and  of  the  old 
First  Dragoons,  U.  S.  A. 

17.  Joseph  Hooker,  of  California,  and  the  old  First 
Artillery,  U.  S.  A. 

1 8.  John  W.  Phelps,  of  Vermont,  Colonel  First  Ver 
mont  Volunteers   (he  who  declined  the  Contreras  and 
Churubusco  brevet). 

19.  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  of  Illinois,  Colonel  Twenty- 
first  Illinois  Volunteers. 

20.  Joseph  J.  Reynolds,  of  Indiana,  Colonel  Tenth 
Indiana  Volunteers. 

21.  Samuel  R.  Curtis,  of  Iowa,  Colonel  Second  Iowa 
Volunteers. 

22.  Charles    S.    Hamilton,    of    Wisconsin,    Colonel 
Third  Wisconsin  Volunteers. 

23.  Darius  N.  Couch,    of    Massachusetts,    Colonel 
Seventh  Massachusetts  Volunteers. 

24.  Rufus   King,  of   Wisconsin,   Brigadier-General 
Wisconsin  Volunteer  Militia. 

25.  Jacob  D.  Cox,  of  Ohio,  Brigadier-General  Ohio 
Volunteer  Militia. 

26.  Stephen  A.  Hurlbut,  of  Illinois. 

27.  Franz    Sigel,    of    Missouri,    Colonel    Missouri 
Volunteers. 

28.  Robert  C.  Schenck,  of  Ohio. 

29.  Benjamin    M.    Prentiss,   of   Illinois,   Brigadier- 
General    Illinois    Militia,    and    Colonel    Tenth    Illinois 
Volunteers. 

156 


"THE  STARS  OF  SIXTY-ONE" 

30.  Frederick  W.  Lander,  of  Massachusetts. 

31.  Edward  D.  Baker,  of  Oregon  (who  declined,  be 
ing  United  States  Senator). 

32.  Benjamin  F.  Kelly,  of  Virginia,  Colonel  West 
Virginia  Volunteers. 

33.  John  A.  McClernand,  of  Illinois. 

34.  Alpheus  S.  Williams,  of  Michigan. 

35.  Israel    B.    Richardson,    of    Michigan,    Colonel 
Second  Michigan  Volunteers. 

36.  William  Sprague,  of  Rhode  Island. 

37.  James  Cooper,  of  Maryland. 

Now,  regular  and  volunteer,  from  first  to  last,  no 
less  than  five  hundred  and  eighty-one  brigadier-generals 
were  appointed  by  President  Lincoln.  The  original 
thirty-seven  were  the  most  favored  because,  being  senior 
in  date  of  commission,  they  early  became  division  or 
even  corps  commanders,  and  presumably  had  the  ad 
vantage.  It  is  important,  therefore,  to  note  these  names, 
and  it  is  interesting  to  study  the  cause  of  their  selection. 

Down  to  Jacob  D.  Cox,  of  Ohio,  all  were  educated 
soldiers  of  more  or  less  service  in  the  regular  army, 
and  all  graduates  of  West  Point  except  Philip  Kearny 
of  New  Jersey.  Having  broken  the  ice  with  the  ap 
pointment  of  Cox,  a  militia  brigadier  in  Ohio,  the  Presi 
dent  followed  it  by  naming  several  gentlemen  of  no 
military  experience  whatsoever,  notably  Hurlbut,  Pren- 
tiss  and  McClernand  of  Illinois,  Lander  of  Massa 
chusetts,  Cooper  of  Maryland,  Schenck  of  Ohio,  and 
Sprague  of  Rhode  Island.  Sprague  had  the  good  sense 
to  decline.  Baker,  the  greatest  man  of  the  array  and 
soldier  of  proved  mettle  in  the  Mexican  war,  declined 
because  the  acceptance  of  a  federal  appointment  might 
jeopard  his  seat  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States. 
Twice,  thrice,  importuned  to  accept  even  higher  rank, 
he  fought  and  died  as  colonel  of  the  so-called  California 
regiment,  raised  in  New  York  and  Philadelphia. 

Of  these  thus  nominated  the  regulars  accepted  with 
i57 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

alacrity  with  the  exception  of  James  Oakes,  Major 
Second  Cavalry,  who  preferred  inferior  rank  with  his 
own  people.  Nathaniel  Lyon  was  killed  before  he  ever 
saw  his  commission.  William  T.  Sherman,  McCall 
(Grant's  old  captain),  Montgomery  of  New  Jersey, 
Kearny  of  New  Jersey,  Hooker  of  California,  Phelps  of 
Vermont,  Grant  of  Illinois,  Reynolds  of  Indiana,  Curtis 
of  Iowa,  Hamilton  and  King  of  Wisconsin,  Couch  of 
Massachusetts,  and  Richardson  of  Michigan,  all  were 
regulars  who  had  left  the  army  and  gone  into  civil  life ; 
some  of  them,  like  Hooker  and  King,  keeping  touch 
with  their  former  profession  through  the  militia,  and 
most  of  them  reappearing  at  the  first  call  in  '61,  at  the 
head  of  brigades  or  regiments  of  State  troops. 

Only  thirty-seven  were  thus  appointed,  and  the  most 
promising  or  prominent  colonels  of  the  regular  service 
having  been  given  the  lion's  share,  the  interest  of  the 
German-Americans  assured  by  the  nomination  of  Sigel, 
and  a  certain  few  former  officers  recalled  to  service,  the 
remainder  were  presumably  "  picked  "  from  the  States. 
It  was  odd  to  see  that  while  Massachusetts,  New  Jersey, 
Ohio,  Michigan  and  Wisconsin  each  was  accorded  two, 
Pennsylvania  but  one  and  New  York  none,  Illinois  had 
no  less  than  four,  three  of  them  men  unknown  to,  and 
the  other  ignored  by,  the  officials  of  the  War  Depart 
ment.  The  stone  the  builders  rejected  became  the  rock 
of  the  national  defense.  The  humble  captain  of  Foot  in 
'54  became  the  first  to  win  the  double  stars  as  major- 
general  because  of  great  and  decisive  victory  in  '62. 

First,  however,  he  had  had  to  sufTer  the  slights  of 
Fremont  and  the  snubs  of  Halleck.  From  his  salient  at 
Cairo  he  could  see  golden  opportunities  for  telling  blows 
in  Western  Kentucky,  yet  could  not  induce  Fremont  to 
see.  Then  when  Fremont  was  relieved  by  Halleck,  the 
brigadier  at  the  front  found  the  Engineer  at  St.  Louis 
equally  deaf  to  his  suggestions  and  entreaties.  First, 
too,  he  had  to  test  the  nerve  and  discipline  of  his  men 

158 


"THE  STARS  OF  SIXTY-ONE " 

in  the  lively  little  affair  at  Belmont — where  he  attacked 
and  burned  the  Confederate  camp  under  the  very  guns 
of  Columbus,  and  then,  in  extricating  his  men  from  what 
promised  to  be  a  trap,  he  well  nigh  lost  his  life.  The 
story  is  old  and  familiar.  The  Confederates  succeeded 
in  landing  heavy  reinforcements  between  him  and  the 
transports,  moored  up  stream  beyond  reach  of  the 
Columbus  guns,  and  nothing  but  daring  horsemanship 
and  a  single  plank  carried  him  to  the  crowded  deck  of 
the  steamer. 

It  had  been  no  part  of  his  plan  to  hold  the  ground 
at  Belmont.  Commanded,  as  was  the  site  of  the  camp, 
by  the  guns  on  the  eastern  bluffs,  retention  of  the  field 
would  have  been  impossible.  The  object  had  been 
simply  to  strike  swiftly  at  the  force  there  assembled, 
to  prevent  its  march  to  the  attack  of  Oglesby's  little 
column  to  the  westward,  to  destroy  the  camp  and  then 
get  back.  McClernand  had  gone  with  him  as  second  in 
command,  had  fought  bravely,  and  after  their  return  to 
Cairo,  while  the  senior  contented  himself  with  a  brief, 
terse  official  report,  the  friends  of  the  junior  filled 
columns  of  the  Illinois  press  with  tales  of  how  Mc 
Clernand  saved  the  day,  and  both  in  and  out  of 
Illinois  thousands  of  readers  were  informed,  and  prob 
ably  believed,  that  McClernand,  not  Grant,  was  entitled 
to  the  honors  of  the  fight.  Grant  read  the  articles  and 
said  no  word  in  remonstrance.  Moreover,  to  the  eager 
and  indignant  members  of  his  staff,  he  made  it  clear 
that  he  would  have  no  newspaper  controversy.  Report 
ers,  eager  to  publish  what  Grant  had  to  say  concerning 
the  claims  of  the  McClernand  faction,  listened  in  open- 
mouthed  surprise  to  his  placid  announcement  that  he  had 
no  time  for  newspaper  fighting.  This  left  to  his  would- 
be  rivals  a  broad  and  fertile  field  which  they  lost  little 
time  in  planting.  The  position  of  Grant  in  the  public 
eye,  therefore,  as  the  first  winter  of  the  war  came  on, 
was  by  no  means  secure.  For  a  day  or  two  he  had  been 

159 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

hailed  delightedly  as  the  leader  in  our  only  victory. 
Barring  certain  minor  successes  of  McClellan  in  West 
Virginia,  nothing  but  humiliation  had  resulted  from  the 
encounters,  east  or  west,  thus  far  hazarded.  The 
North  had  failed  wretchedly  at  Big  Bethel,  Bull  Run, 
and  Ball's  Bluff  in  Virginia,  had  lost  the  general  and 
the  fight  at  Springfield  in  Missouri  and  the  colonel 
and  the  post  at  Jefferson  City.  Only  one  good  resound 
ing  blow  had  been  dealt  the  enemy,  and  it  was  Grant 
who  planned  and  delivered  it.  But  above  him,  now  at 
St.  Louis,  sat  Henry  Wager  Halleck,  who  was  at  San 
Francisco  and  in  touch  with  headquarters  when  Grant 
came  down  from  Humboldt  a  practically  broken  man, 
and  went  his  sad  way  back  to  civil  life,  leaving  only 
the  Buchanan  side  of  the  story  for  the  information 
of  army  circles  there,  and  now  Halleck  looked  with 
disfavor  upon  the  resurrected  officer  and  with  doubt 
upon  his  plans.  And  below  him  now  was  McClernand, 
brave,  ambitious,  full  of  energy  and  eagerness,  and  hav 
ing  all  the  advantage  of  years  in  Congress  and  political 
life,  and  in  close  touch  with  the  press  and  the  people. 
Then  there  was  Prentiss,  brave,  honorable  and  patriotic, 
who  would  probably  have  made  one  of  the  best  of  the 
Western  leaders,  as  Grant  himself  says,  but  who  lost 
his  head  and  temporarily  his  command  through  prac 
tical  refusal  to  serve  under  the  orders  of  the  Galena 
clerk  and  ex-captain.  It  took  months  to  readjust  that 
matter,  and  there  were  friends  and  partisans  of  Pren 
tiss  who  joined  forces  with  those  of  McClernand,  and 
the  papers  took  up  the  one-sided  fight  and  stabbed  at  the 
silent  man  down  there  at  Cairo.  With  intrigue  below 
and  distrust  above  him,  things  might  have  gone  much 
amiss  with  the  fortunes  of  Grant  but  for  the  stanch 
friendship  and  support  of  such  men  as  Elihu  Wash- 
burne  and  Governor  Yates,  on  the  civil  side,  and  the 
loyal,  soldierly  and  spirited — "  the  spirit  of  old  West 
Point " — support  of  such  men  as  his  old-time  com- 

160 


"THE  STARS  OF  SIXTY-ONE" 

mandant,  the  model  soldier  who  had  tried  to  make  him 
a  sergeant,  and  his  other  old-time  senior  of  the  Class 
of  1840,  now  by  the  most  extraordinary  turn  in  the 
affairs  of  men,  assigned  as  brigadier-generals  of  volun 
teers  in  western  Kentucky,  and  actually  serving  under 
the  orders  of  the  cheery-faced  "  plebe  "  who  entered 
from  Ohio  in  1839.  Charles  F.  Smith  and  William 
Tecumseh  Sherman,  who  had  had  so  much  to  do  with 
licking  into  soldier  shape  the  fledgling  cadet  from  Brown 
County,  Ohio,  began  their  career  in  the  volunteer  army 
under  the  command  of  their  modest  pupil  of  the  long 
ago. 

Twenty  thousand  men,  there  or  thereabouts,  had 
Grant  assembled  about  Paducah,  Cairo  and  Bird's 
Point,  just  as  well  prepared,  said  he,  to  take  the  field 
as  were  the  sons  of  the  South  assembled  about  Colum 
bus,  and  not  only  did  he  write  and  urge  that  he  be 
permitted  to  advance  and  strike,  but  he  went  and 
urged,  believing  Fremont  could  be  induced  to  consent. 
But  he  little  knew  Fremont,  and  he  came  back  re 
buked.  Later  on  he  ventured  to  impress  his  views  on 
Halleck,  and  frigid  and  impassive  silence  was  his  re 
ward.  He  who  would  not  even  defend  himself  in  the 
public  press,  was  being  dragged  into  a  newspaper  war 
fare,  and  thereby  hangs  another  tale. 


ii 


CHAPTER  XVI 
SOLDIER  IN  SPITE  OF  STAFF  AND  KINDRED 

WHEN  the  war  broke  out  in  '61  and  an  army  of 
500,000  men  was  called  into  the  field,  no  difficulty  was 
experienced  in  getting  the  men — what  we  needed  was  of 
ficers.  Staff  officers  were  few,  and  staff  schools  we 
had  none.  Officers  appointed  to  brigade  and  division 
rank  from  the  line  of  the  army  had  been  prompt  to 
select  for  their  aides  and  adjutants  the  brightest  and 
brainiest  young  soldiers  in  the  service.  Officers  enter 
ing  from  civil  life  upon  such  high  and  important  com 
mands,  were  compelled  to  look  elsewhere.  No  division 
and  few  brigade  commanders  in  the  army  about  Wash 
ington  failed  to  have  a  "  regular  "  or  two  in  the  official 
family.  Few  division  and  no  brigade  commanders  in 
Kentucky  and  Missouri  had  anything  but  untried  volun 
teers.  When  Grant  became  a  brigadier  he  was  em 
powered  to  name  an  adjutant-general  with  the  rank 
of  captain,  and  two  aides-de-camp  with  the  rank  of 
first  lieutenant.  For  adjutant-general  he  wrote  at  once 
to  a  Galena  lawyer,  Mr.  John  A.  Rawlins,  a  young,  able 
and  energetic  writer  and  speaker  whom  the  silent  soldier 
held  in  much  esteem.  It  can  hardly  be  said  they  were 
friends  or  intimates.  Rawlins  had  charge  of  the  legal 
business  of  Jesse  Grant,  the  father,  and  much,  there 
fore,  to  do  with  the  affairs  of  Orvil  &  Company.  He 
had  been  a  frequent  visitor  to  the  store,  and  had  become 
interested  in  the  self-effacing  elder  brother  who  seemed 
to  shrink  into  the  background  when  customers  or  busi 
ness  came.  Mr.  Rawlins  had  a  near  neighbor  in  a 
half  sister  of  Grant's  beloved  mother,  a  Mrs.  Lee,  and 
Mrs.  Lee  would  have  it  that  in  spite  of  appearances, 
adversity,  and  tales  at  his  expense,  "  Ulysses "  was 

162 


BRIG.-GEN.  AUGUSTUS  L.  CHETLAIN  MAJOR  WILLIAM  R.  ROWLEY 


BRIG.-GEN.  JOHN  A.  RAWLINS  CAPTAIN  ELY  S.  PARKER 


GRANT'S   GALEXA  COMRADES-IX-ARMS 


SOLDIER  IN  SPITE  OF  STAFF  AND  KINDRED 

far  the  superior  of  "  the  rest  of  the  Grants."  It  was 
not  until  the  organization  of  the  Jo  Daviess  Guards  in 
April  that  Mr.  Rawlins  could  see  why.  Then  on  a 
sudden,  as  it  were,  Ulysses  abandoned  the  stoop- 
shouldered,  slouchy  gait  he  had  acquired  about  the  farm 
and  shop,  pulled  his  hat  from  the  back  of  his  head  and 
placed  it,  West  Point  fashion,  well  forward,  and 
"  braced  "  generally.  Rawlins  knew  of  Grant's  modest 
efforts  and  later  tender  of  service  and  application  for  a 
regiment,  and  noted  Grant's  grim  endurance  of  the 
slights  that  attended  his  appeal  to  the  War  Department. 
Rawlins  had  decided  to  enter  the  army  himself,  and  was 
counting  on  the  appointment  to  the  majority  of  one  of 
the  new  Illinois  regiments  when  suddenly  halted  by  a 
letter  from  Grant  tendering  him  the  position  of  cap 
tain  and  assistant  adjutant-general.  Rawlins  gave  up 
the  majority  and  joined  his  fortunes  with  those  of  the 
shabby  clerk.  It  fell  to  Grant's  lot  to  name  many 
another  staff  officer  in  the  next  three  years.  It  is  doubt 
ful  if  even  in  all  the  array  of  brilliant  minds  and  brainy 
men  with  whom  he  was  later  surrounded — men  like 
McPherson,  Wilson,  Comstock,  Rufus  Ingalls  and 
Horace  Porter,  all  West  Pointers,  all  loyal,  devoted 
and  almost  invaluable  aids — Grant  ever  attached  to  his 
person  a  stancher  staff  officer,  or  in  every  sense  a  truer 
friend,  than  that  Galena  lawyer,  John  A.  Rawlins.  Our 
best  friends,  as  has  been  wisely  said,  are  those  who 
fear  not  to  tell  us  the  truth  about  ourselves,  and  from 
that  day  in  August,  '61,  with  rare  fidelity  and  judgment, 
Rawlins  served  his  kindly  chief,  rising  with  him,  step  by 
step,  from  the  bars  of  a  captain  to  the  portfolio  of  Sec 
retary  of  War,  the  most  fearless  and  independent  of  all 
their  number,  because,  perhaps,  he  had  known  and  be 
friended  his  leader  when  most  he  stood  in  need — the 
one  who  dared  admonish  when  symptoms  of  that  much- 
talked-of-but-little-known  weakness  returned,  the  most 
valuable  because  he  knew  what  the  others  lacked — how 

163 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

to  deal  with  civil  and  political  influences,  and  withal, 
not  far  the  inferior  professionally  of  any  one  of  their 
number,  because  he  had  finally  mastered  in  the  school  of 
actual  war  the  principles  which  they  had  gathered  at 
West  Point.  It  was  a  red  letter  day  for  Grant  when 
John  A.  Rawlins  became  his  chief-of-staff. 

Writers  have  referred  to  this  selection  of  Rawlins 
as  clinching  proof  of  Grant's  knowledge  of  men.  The 
selection  of  his  first  aides-de-camp  and  of  later  as 
sociates,  however,  seems  to  disprove  the  proposition. 
Believing  it  due  his  original  regiment  to  name  one  of 
its  officers  as  one  of  his  aides,  Grant  chose  a  lieutenant 
from  that  organization,  and  then,  feeling  free  to  look 
somewhere  else,  he  harked  back  to  St.  Louis  days,  and 
lifted,  from  the  law  and  collection  office  in  which  he 
had  tried  to  work,  a  young  man  whose  alert  and  cheery 
ways  had  much  impressed  the  struggling,  would-be  col 
lector.  Then,  Grantlike,  having  made  his  choice,  he 
stood  by  it,  keeping  these  two  close  to  him  through  the 
first  year  of  the  war  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  neither 
proved  of  military  use  and  both  of  embarrassment. 
Then  one  became  convinced  that  soldier  life  was  not 
his  proper  sphere,  and  quit  the  staff  and  service  by 
voluntary  resignation.  The  other  lasted  until  the  'ate 
fall  of  '63,  when  "  relieved  "  by  order. 

But  for  months  Grant  was  practically  his  own 
quartermaster,  commissary,  ordnance  officer,  inspector- 
general  and,  indeed,  aide-de-camp.  Rawlins  speedily 
learned  the  routine  of  the  adjutant-general's  desk,  but 
for  many  long  weeks  the  general  did  his  own  writing, 
recording,  endorsing,  making  out  returns,  requisitions, 
permits,  passes  and  orders,  as  Rawlins  discovered,  when 
first  he  joined  him  at  Cairo,  and  was  amazed  at  the 
volume  of  business  the  unbusinesslike  ex-captain  of 
Galena  days  could  now  accomplish. 

The  new  uniform  of  the  generalship  had  not  reached 
the  brigadier  when  he  and  his  chief-of-staff  settled 

164 


SOLDIER  IN  SPITE  OF  STAFF  AND  KINDRED 

down  to  work  at  Cairo.  Grant  had  considered  uni 
forms  as  of  secondary  importance,  even  when  he 
stopped  at  St.  Louis  to  confer  with  his  senior  Fremont, 
who  had  arrayed  himself  in  all  the  splendor  regulations 
would  permit,  and  more,  and  surrounded  himself  with 
a  pomp,  style  and  ceremony  utterly  unprovided  for  in 
those  military  scriptures.  Grant  sent  in  his  name  and 
rank,  as  required,  took  a  seat  in  the  hall,  as  he  had  in 
McClellan's  ante-room  in  Cincinnati,  and  waited  the 
convenience  of  the  chief — waited  hours  in  vain,  an  ob 
ject  of  some  curiosity,  but  no  courtesy,  to  a  half  score 
of  foreign-born  and  bred  staff  officials  in  gorgeous 
array — the  soldiers  of  fortune  with  whom  Fremont 
loved  to  surround  himself.  Not  until  a  St.  Louis 
quartermaster,  an  old  army  associate,  happened  in  had 
so  much  as  a  friendly  glance  come  his  way.  Startled 
into  sudden  familiarity  at  the  sight  of  the  best  brigadier 
in  the  district  sitting  solitary  in  the  semi-darkness  of 
the  hall,  Major  McKinstry  exclaimed,  "  Sam,  what  are 
you  doing  here?"  and  then,  bristling  with  indignation, 
went  himself  to  apprise  Fremont  of  the  presence  in 
waiting  of  one  of  the  senior  generals  of  his  command. 
It  appears  that  on  this  occasion  Fremont  received  the 
travel-stained,  unmilitary-looking  westerner  with  some 
show  of  civility,  though  he  could  not  forbear  remark 
upon  the  absence  of  uniform,  and  was  not  too  well 
satisfied  with  Grant's  simple  explanation  that  he  had 
given  away  his  regimentals  when  he  ceased  to  be  a 
colonel  and  had  not  yet  received  the  more  elaborate 
frock  coat,  and  could  not  even  buy  in  the  West  the 
starred  shoulder-straps  of  a  brigadier. 

The  uniform,  it  may  be  said,  came  safely  to  Cairo, 
and  he  was  quite  human  enough  to  sit  for  a  photograph 
or  two.  There  was  a  large  one  representing  him  in  the 
full  uniform  of  a  brigadier-general,  minus  the  epaulettes 
and  chapeau,  but  with  sword,  sash,  belt  and  the  black- 
plumed  Kossuth  hat  prescribed  in  '61.  It  represented 

165 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

him  as  wearing  a  full,  long  beard,  something  he  never 
did  thereafter,  for  the  hirsute  crop  during  the  winter 
at  Donelson  was  short  and  almost  stubby.  That  photo 
graph  was  copied,  presently,  in  full-page  pictures  by 
Harper's  Weekly,  and  studied  with  infinite  interest 
all  over  the  land,  for  hope  and  faith,  in  spite  of  news 
paper  sneers  as  to  Belmont,  were  settling  upon  him. 
But  it  looked  so  little  like  the  Grant  of  Donelson  and 
Shiloh  of  February  and  April,  '62,  that  many  a  new 
arrival  in  the  Army  of  the  Tennessee  failed  to  recog 
nize  the  commanding  general  as  he  was. 

Another  photograph,  a  group  picture,  was  taken 
about  the  time,  which  seems  of  late  years  to  have  dis 
appeared  entirely.  He  refers  to  it  in  a  letter  to  his 
sister,  to  whom  he  sends  a  copy  and  a  list  of  the 
officers  portrayed,  and  it  seems  further  that  he  ordered 
too  few  to  supply  the  family  demand,  for  there  had 
come  over  the  Grants  a  sudden  and  marked  interest  in 
that  much-discussed  topic,  "  the  fortunes  of  Ulysses/' 
From  having  been  the  humblest  and  least  considered 
in  the  lot,  the  eldest  son  and  brother  was  now  the  ob 
ject  of  no  little  comment  and  correspondence.  The 
family  had  gained  an  access  of  importance  in  the  eyes 
of  Illinois  and  Ohio  friends  and  neighbors,  and  presently 
the  letters  to  the  district  commander  became  freighted 
with  all  manner  of  requests  for  all  manner  of  favors. 
The  number  of  enterprising  folk  "  with  axes  to  grind," 
with  fuel,  forage,  flour,  horses,  mules,  beef  cattle,  with 
shoes,  saddles  and  harness  which  they  were  eager  to  sell 
the  government  on  Grant's  recommendation  was  almost 
incredible.  The  family  had  always  relied  on  the  easy 
good  nature  of  "  Ulyss  "  in  the  past,  and  now  sought 
to  avail  themselves  of  the  relationship  in  the  further 
ance  of  their  schemes.  Now  they  wrote  as  confidently  in 
the  interest  of  some  dealer,  contractor  or  purveyor, 
nominated  new  staff  officers,  urged  commissions  or 
appointments  for  dozens  of  aspiring  fellow  citizens, 

166 


SOLDIER  IN  SPITE  OF  STAFF  AND  KINDRED 

and  asked  for  passes  or  permits  for  peddlers  and  sales 
men  to  pervade  his  camps  and  turn,  presumably,  many 
an  honest  penny. 

And  now  the  son  and  brother  appeared  in  a  new  and 
surprising  light.  Ulysses,  the  gentle,  if  not  the  wise, 
who  had  ever  been  yielding  at  the  beck  of  his  kith  and 
kin,  and  who  was  ever  a  willing  vassal  to  the  will  of 
his  wife,  developed  an  utterly  unlocked  for  ability  to 
say  no.  Whatsoever  he  had  been  wont  to  yield  in  mat 
ters  personal  to  himself,  he  would  now  most  doggedly 
deny  if  it  affected  Uncle  Sam.  It  is  noteworthy  that 
among  all  these  suggestions  and  requests  that  came 
from  father,  sisters,  brothers  and  brother-in-law,  there 
was  never  one  from  that  gentle  mother.  Between  her 
and  her  first-born  there  had  ever  been  a  wordless  sym 
pathy  and  understanding.  She  would  not  now  enter 
into  the  family  schemes.  As  for  Julia  Dent,  her  letters 
to  him  and  his  to  her  were  ever  too  sacred  for  other 
eyes.  Those  written  to  other  members  of  the  family 
have  been  edited  and  published,  and  it  is  through  them 
there  are  revealed  these  matters  on  which  he  and  his 
staff  would  have  been  silent,  especially  that  episode  in 
which  the  son,  now  general  commanding  an  army  in 
the  field,  was  compelled  at  last  to  rebuke  and  silence 
the  father. 

Mention  has  earlier  been  made  of  Jesse  Grant's 
propensity  for  writing  to  the  papers,  and  when  these 
journals  began  to  fill  up  with  the  stories  of  the  Prentiss 
and  McClernand  sympathizers,  Jesse,  as  was  to  be 
expected,  flew  to  pen  in  rebuttal  and  refutation.  In 
vain  the  son  counselled  patience  and  silence;  the  elder 
loved  that  sort  of  battle  and  wrote  again  and  yet  again, 
and  was  published,  quoted,  copied  and  reassailed  until 
Grant,  the  son,  at  last  could  stand  it  no  longer  and 
demanded  that  it  cease. 

"  My  worst  enemy,"  he  wrote,  "  could  do  me  no 
more  injury  than  you  are  doing."  It  seems  that  Jesse 

167 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

had  been  indulging  in  comments  of  his  own  at  the  ex 
pense  of  other  generals,  "  and  these,"  said  Grant,  the  son, 
"  are  unquestionably  regarded  as  reflecting  my  views." 
In  positive  and  not  too  filial  terms  he  had  to  forbid  his 
father's  writing  further  for  publication,  and  Jesse 
wonderingly  asked  himself: 

"  Upon  what  meat  doth  this  our  Caesar  feed 
That  he  is  grown  so  great  ? " 

But,  for  a  time  the  papers  had  fattened  on  the  fac 
tional  strife  waged  in  their  columns.  It  gave  to  Grant 
his  strong  dislike  for  newspaper  notoriety  of  any  kind, 
and  his  distrust  of  newspaper  men  and  mention.  It 
led  to  his  habit  of  utter  silence  except  in  presence  of 
his  trusted  friends.  With  them  he  could  talk  and  did 
talk  fluently  and  well. 

Whatever  lingering  doubt  the  family  may  have  had 
as  to  the  mastership  of  Ulysses  was  ended  by  the  great 
victory  of  Donelson,  and  theirs  were  not  the  only  eyes 
that  were  not  too  willingly  opened.  "  To  err  is  human, 
to  forgive  divine,"  and  to  forgive  instant  and  over 
whelming  success  in  those  whom  we  have  long  looked 
upon  as  flat  failures  is  super-human.  All  things  con 
sidered,  it  is  almost  marvellous  that  Grant  should  have 
won  at  Donelson  at  all. 

To  begin  with,  Halleck  had  reached  St.  Louis  two 
days  after  Belmont,  had  taken  over  the  command  as 
left  by  Fremont  and  had  been  digesting  all  the  news 
paper  misrepresentations  of  Grant  ever  since.  Coupled 
with  these  were  his  recollections  of  the  Humboldt 
stories  in  '54,  and  added  to  these  were  the  tales  of 
hangers-on  about  headquarters  who  are  ever  ready 
to  undermine  a  rival  or  overthrow  a  coming  man  who 
has  once  been  "  going."  Halleck  wished  to  make  haste 
slowly,  as  was  the  method  of  the  Engineer.  Grant,  who 
had  studied  the  field,  the  forces  on  both  sides,  and  who 
knew,  as  Halleck  did  not,  the  generals  confronting  him 

168 


SOLDIER  IN  SPITE  OF  STAFF  AND  KINDRED 

in  Kentucky,  was  chafing  with  eagerness  and  confident 
of  success.  Along  his  front  were  Polk  and  Buckner, 
for  whom  personally  he  felt  respect  and  regard.  With 
them  were  Floyd  and  Pillow,  one  of  whom  he  held  in 
aversion,  the  other  in  contempt. 

Writing  to  Halleck  proved  fruitless.  Grant  had 
been  urging  attack  on  Polk  at  Columbus,  claiming  that 
every  day  was  adding  to  the  strength  of  its  force  and 
fortifications,  but  Halleck  refused.  Three  months  were 
well  nigh  frittered  away,  just  as  was  the  case  with 
McClellan  in  the  east,  only  there  that  great  organizer 
had  at  his  back  three  times  the  number  of  the  enemy 
in  his  front,  and  vastly  better  drill,  discipline  and  equip 
ment.  For  weeks  Grant  had  been  begging  permission 
to  seize  Fort  Henry  on  the  Tennessee,  and  hold  the  posi 
tion  in  force.  It  would  pierce  at  the  centre  the  Con 
federate  line.  Not  until  January  I2th  could  Halleck 
be  induced  to  order  Grant  forward  as  a  means  of  pre 
venting  the  reinforcement  of  Buckner  at  Bowling 
Green.  With  McClernand  and  C.  S.  Smith  for  division 
commanders,  in  spite  of  roads  rendered  abominable 
by  wintry  rains,  Grant  took  the  field  the  instant  Halleck 
would  let  him  go,  McClernand  directed  on  Mayfield, 
Kentucky,  midway  between  Columbus  and  the  Ten 
nessee,  Smith  straight  at  Fort  Henry.  Grant  with 
Admiral  Foote,  steamed  up  the  river,  "  sampled  "  the 
fort  with  a  few  shells  and  settled  in  their  minds  that  it 
could  easily  be  reduced  and  taken.  But  as  soon  as  the 
scheme  of  reinforcing  Buckner  was  fully  blocked  the 
troops  were  recalled  to  the  Ohio,  and  Grant,  without 
invitation,  hastened  to  St.  Louis  to  beg  of  Halleck  per 
mission  to  readvance  and  take  the  fort.  He  came  back 
rebuffed  and  refused.  Then  Foote  tried  his  persuasive 
powers,  and  still  Halleck  hung  back.  Twice  again, 
on  the  28th  and  29th  of  January,  Grant  renewed  his 
appeal,  but  never  a  word  would  Halleck  vouchsafe  in 
reply.  Matters  might  have  gone  on  indefinitely  had 

169 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

not  George  H.  Thomas  whipped  the  Confederates  at 
Mill  Springs,  far  to  the  east  of  them,  and  as  General 
Zollicoffer  was  among  the  Confederate  dead,  and  the 
North  frantically  rejoiced  over  the  little  victory,  the 
first  it  had  unquestionably  scored,  Halleck  decided  that 
he  would  have  to  do  something.  On  February  1st, 
therefore,  he  gave  to  Grant  the  long-withheld  instrucr 
tions,  and  on  February  6th  Grant  telegraphed  "  Fort 
Henry  is  ours."  He  could  as  readily  have  done  so  if 
permitted  three  months  before. 

Then  he  turned  on  Donelson,  only  a  short  day's 
march  away  and  on  the  west  bank  of  the  Cumberland, 
but  now  the  floods  came,  the  winds  blew  and  all  nature 
took  a  hand  in  favor  of  the  South.  Only  six  thousand 
men  garrisoned  Donelson  when  Henry  was  captured,  but 
by  the  I2th,  when  the  frost  and  ice  and  snow  replaced 
the  rains,  Grant's  old  benefactor,  Buckner,  was  there, 
one  of  the  twenty  thousand  assembled  under  two  as 
useless  generals  as  ever  wore  the  Southern  uniform — 
John  B.  Floyd  and  Gideon  J.  Pillow.  Donelson  was  an 
admirable  position  for  defense.  The  gunboats  could 
approach  it  only  under  raking  fire.  It  had  to  be  in 
vested  on  the  land  side  by  Grant's  three  divisions.  The 
gallant  admiral,  hoping  to  use  his  Dahlgrens  as  ef 
fectively  as  at  Henry,  ordered  an  independent  naval  at 
tack,  and  in  one  hour's  heavy  battling  had  every  boat 
disabled  and  driven  out  of  action.  Ten  of  his  men 
were  killed,  many  were  wounded,  he  himself  among  the 
latter,  and  thus  ended  the  navy's  opportunity  for  the 
time  being. 

A  dismal  Valentine's  Day  was  that  of  February  14, 
'62.  The  mercury  went  to  ten  below.  Scores  of  men 
were  frozen,  but  all  the  same  McClernand,  Lew  Wallace 
and  C.  F.  Smith  had  strung  their  lines  about  Donelson, 
almost  around  to  the  upper  river.  The  investment  was 
practically  complete.  Grant  had  trotted  down  stream 
in  answer  to  appeal  from  Foote,  who  lay  disabled  now 

170 


SOLDIER  IN  SPITE  OF  STAFF  AND  KINDRED 

beyond  long  gunshot,  and  who  proposed  taking  all  the 
boats  at  once  to  St.  Louis  for  repairs,  the  army  mean 
time  remaining  in  investment  about  the  beleaguered 
stronghold.  Grant  had  no  objection  whatever  to  the 
gunboats  going  for  repairs — they  were  of  no  further 
use  in  their  present  plight — but  he  had  other  views  as  to 
what  the  army  should  do  in  their  absence. 

And  in  the  midst  of  the  conference  came  tidings  of 
battle,  and  Grant,  galloping  back,  biting  hard  at  the 
end  of  a  cigar  there  had  been  no  time  to  light,  found 
lively  eruption  along  his  whole  line,  especially  at  the 
far  right  flank. 

It  seems  that  Floyd  had  been  urged  to  follow  up  the 
advantage  gained  in  beating  off  the  navy  by  impetuous 
attack  on  the  encircling  line.  Grant  had  only  a  few 
field  batteries,  and  the  plan  promised  well.  Floyd's  men 
were  hurled  in  force  on  McClernand's  right,  and  drove 
it  back,  reopening  the  river  road,  but  there  the  attack 
seemed  to  spend  itself.  By  one  o'clock  Grant  had  re 
joined,  and  without  a  moment's  delay  ordered  a  strong 
counter  assault,  beginning  with  his  old  commandant 
and  his  sturdy  division  on  the  extreme  northern  flank, 
and  right  loyally  did  that  gallant  soldier  and  gentleman 
respond. 

Straight  through  the  wintry  woods  they  drove,  the 
long,  irregular  lines  in  the  light  blue  overcoats,  the 
heroic  figure  of  their  tall,  slender  and  chivalric  division 
commander,  sword  in  hand,  towering  in  their  midst. 
Grant's  eyes  kindled  at  the  sight.  It  brought  back  old 
days  on  the  drill  ground  at  the  Point.  It  recalled  that 
famous  onset  at  Chapultepec,  and  those  who  saw  him 
said  that  gallant  "  Charley  "  Smith  was  never  a  more 
superb  picture  of  the  knightly  soldier  than  when  he  led 
his  wild  westerners  into  this,  his  first  and,  as  God  willed, 
his  last  battle  in  the  Civil  War.  Stern  was  their  recep 
tion  when  they  reached  the  Southern  works,  but  furious 
their  onward  sweep,  and  as  Grant  galloped  on  through 

171 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

the  murky  woods  to  urge  the  prompt  co-operation  of 
Wallace  and  McClernand,  the  ringing  cheer  of  the 
charging  lines  told  him  that  even  stubborn  resistance 
had  not  stayed  the  rush  of  his  left  wing;  and  now  his 
every  effort  was  needed  at  the  right.  Heartily  the  men 
of  Wallace's  division  had  taken  up  their  share  of  the 
fight,  but  McClernand  had  been  hard-pounded  early  in 
the  day,  and  here  it  required  some  time  and  urging  to 
accomplish  the  desired  result.  Yet  when  the  evening 
shadows  fell  upon  the  smoke-shrouded  forest,  once 
again  McClernand  occupied  the  lines  from  which  he  had 
been  driven  in  the  morning,  Wallace  had  carried  the 
outer  line  in  his  front,  and  Smith,  leaping  the  intrench- 
ments  before  him,  had  huddled  the  bewildered  de 
fenders  close  under  the  guns  of  Donelson  itself. 
"  Only  in  more  compact  formation  for  to-morrow's 
fight,"  said  a  croaker  or  two  in  the  Union  lines.  But 
Grant  had  called  for  the  haversack  of  a  prisoner  and 
examined  the  contents.  Two  days'  cooked  rations,  such 
as  they  were,  still  remained.  That  meant,  said  he,  that 
they  had  been  trying  to  fight  their  way  out ;  that  meant, 
as  the  soldiers  said,  that  "  we  had  them  going." 

And  so  it  proved.  The  Southern  leaders  met  in 
council  after  dark  at  Dover.  Floyd  had  had  enough, 
and,  moreover,  entertained  misgivings  as  to  what  might 
be  his  fate  if  captured,  for  as  War  Secretary  of  the 
United  States  under  James  Buchanan  he  had  done  all 
that  lay  within  him  to  strip  the  Union  and  supply  the 
South.  Pillow,  known  to  Grant  of  old  in  Mexico, 
weakened  just  as  Grant  predicted.  Forrest,  mettlesome 
trooper  that  he  ever  was,  marshalled  his  four  hundred 
Horse  about  him,  slipped  away  under  cover  of  dark 
ness,  and  went  on  to  a  three  years'  career  of  daring 
deeds  and  desperate  battle,  while  Buckner,  soldier  and 
gentleman,  was  left  to  make  the  best  terms  he  could  for 
himself  and  his  beleaguered  thousands  of  Foot  and 
Artillery.  Not  only  Fort  Henry  was  won,  but  Donelson, 

172 


SOLDIER  IN  SPITE  OF  STAFF  AND  KINDRED 

the  stronghold  of  the  southwest,  with  all  its  guns,  muni 
tions  and  supplies,  with  two  general  officers  and  thir 
teen  thousand  men  captured,  and  over  two  thousand 
slain  or  severely  wounded.  These  were  the  immediate 
fruits  of  the  first  decisive  battle  of  the  long  and  bitter 
war — a  battle  planned  and  a  victory  won  by  the  "  flat 
failure  "  as  farmer,  collector,  clerk,  as  so  many  writers 
insist,  but,  as  soldiers  see  it,  by  a  general  whose  leader 
ship  was  known  of  old,  and  whose  mettle  had  long 
been  tried  and  proved — by  Grant,  the  man  of  Molino 
and  of  Monterey. 


CHAPTER  XVII 
THE  REWARDS  OF  DONELSON 

BITTER  was  the  cup  of  the  gallant  Southern  leader 
who  chose  to  share  the  fate  of  his  fellow  soldiers. 
Floyd  and  Pillow,  loading  what  they  could  on  light 
draft  river  boats  at  the  Dover  levee,  had  steamed  away 
to  safety  during  the  night,  and  were  speedily  lost  to 
public  view.  Forrest,  with  his  brace  of  lively  squad 
rons,  had  managed  to  squirm  out  of  the  net,  and  it  was 
left  to  one  of  the  bravest  and  best  of  the  "  sons  of  the 
dark  and  bloody  ground  "  to  appeal  to  the  soldier  who 
seven  years  earlier  had  been  compelled  to  appeal  to 
him,  and  whom  he,  Buckner,  had  so  generously  aided. 
"  Unchivalric  "  indeed  seemed  the  terms  of  the  brief, 
stern  reply  penned  by  the  conqueror,  yet  Simon  Bolivar 
Buckner  was  soldier  enough  to  know  that  in  the  busi 
ness  of  war  there  could  really  be  no  other  issue.  He 
had  asked  at  dawn  of  the  i6th  for  six  hours'  truce 
and  for  commissioners.  He  very  probably  knew  that 
the  obvious  answer  of  a  thorough  soldier  must  be  that 
which  came  instanter:  "I  propose  to  move  im 
mediately  upon  your  works."  There  was  left  to  Buck 
ner,  therefore,  only  unconditional  surrender. 

That  surrender  accomplished,  his  stern  task  com 
plete  and  his  full  duty  performed,  who  could  then  more 
thoroughly  requite  the  ancient  debt  of  gratitude  than 
he  who  demanded  the  uttermost  compliance  with  "  the 
custom  of  war  in  like  cases  "  ?  Grant's  hand  went  out 
instantly  to  greet  and  welcome  the  friend  of  old. 
Grant's  wallet,  well-filled  now,  was  forced  upon  his 
benefactor  of  1854,  and  the  fellowship  of  other  days 
was  renewed  over  the  campfires  of  humbled  Donelson. 

"  Unconditional  surrender !  "     The  North  read  the 


THE  REWARDS  OF  DONELSON 

magic  words  flashed  over  the  wires  with  a  gasp  almost 
of  amaze  and  incredulity — then  gave  way  to  the  wildest 
demonstration  of  delight.  How  the  cannon  boomed  and 
the  joybells  pealed  and  strong  men  shook  with  pent 
emotion!  Accustomed  for  long  months,  after  the  bit 
ter  humiliation  of  the  summer  and  early  autumn,  to 
hear  of  nothing  but  parade  and  preparation  in  the  Army 
of  McClellan  in  Virginia,  of  nothing  but  delay  and 
demand  for  reinforcements  in  the  Army  of  Buell  in 
Kentucky,  having  read  day  after  day  slur  and  in 
nuendo  as  to  Grant,  having  been  assured  that  he  was 
whipped  at  Belmont,  that,  a  second  time,  he  had  slunk 
back  to  the  Ohio  from  unsuccessful  essay  at  the  hostile 
lines,  that  it  was  Foote  and  the  gunboats,  not  Grant 
and  the  volunteers,  that  triumphed  at  Henry,  having 
read  with  dismay  that  Foote  and  the  gunboats  had 
been  shot  out  of  action  in  front  of  Donelson,  and  that 
Grant  would  probably  for  the  third  time  have  to  re 
treat  on  the  Ohio,  the  North  was  dreading  new  disaster, 
the  South  was  thrilling  with  assurance  of  new  triumph, 
for  had  not  Pillow  mendaciously,  before  his  ignominious 
skip  for  safety,  wired  to  Richmond,  "  The  day  is  ours. 
I  have  repulsed  the  enemy  at  all  points  "  ?  And  so  it 
resulted  that  when  by  the  morning  of  the  i/th  of  Feb 
ruary  it  was  proved  beyond  peradventure  that  the 
rumors  of  the  night  before  were  actually  true,  a  very 
frenzy  of  rejoicing  and  of  gratitude  overswept  the 
•North  and  descended  upon  Grant. 

And  now  indeed  it  called  for  all  the  native  modesty 
of  the  man  and  the  wisdom  of  Ulysses  to  withstand  the 
wave  of  adulation,  and  later  all  the  patience  of  his  long 
tried  and  tempered  spirit  to  bear  in  silence  the  revela 
tion  of  the  efforts  made  to  credit  others  and  to  rob 
him,  the  inspiration  of  the  entire  enterprise,  of  the 
fruits  of  his  well-earned  victory. 

One  of  Halleck's  first  despatches  to  the  Secretary 
of  War,  after  that  which  announced  the  astounding 

175 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

news,  was  an  assurance  that  the  administration  could 
"  make  no  mistake  whatever  "  in  conferring  immediate 
promotion  upon  General  Charles  F.  Smith,  whose  gal 
lantry  merited  prompt  recognition.  True  enough !  All 
the  old  army  knew  and  honored  and  admired  Charley 
Smith,  and  it  was  of  course  possible  that  to  the  mathe 
matical  mind  of  Halleck,  the  older  officer,  the  former 
commandant  should  be  replaced  on  the  ladder  of  pro 
motion  above  his  former  cadet  pupil,  whom  the  accidents 
and  fortunes  of  war  had  temporarily  made  commander 
in  the  field. 

How  that  fetish  of  rank  only  by  seniority  seemed 
to  clog  the  military  policy  of  the  United  States!  The 
writer  well  remembers  the  buzz  of  comment  in  eastern 
army  circles  over  the  original  elevation  of  Grant,  J.  J. 
Reynolds  and  C.  S.  Hamilton,  of  the  Class  of  '43, 
above  so  very  many  of  their  elders  in  the  service.  And 
now  that  Grant,  who,  as  we  were  so  often  reminded, 
"  had  quit  the  service  under  a  cloud,"  should  have  been 
the  first  and  only  man  to  win  a  great  and  decisive  bat 
tle,  the  first  to  accomplish  great  results,  and  therefore 
to  be  almost  sure  of  corresponding  reward,  many  were 
the  military  obstacles  thrown  in  his  path.  Halleck  was 
but  the  exponent  of  a  sentiment  that  found  expression 
in  many  a  way. 

But  adverse  influences  were  utterly  swamped  in  the 
wave  of  public  opinion,  and  in  the  tumult  of  national 
rejoicing.  Those  magic  words  "  unconditional  sur 
render,"  and  the  pointed,  pithy  sequel,  "  I  propose  to 
move  immediately  upon  your  works,"  had  fired  the 
smouldering  fervor  of  the  North,  and  the  flame  of 
triumph  and  delight  more  brilliantly  illumined  the  de 
tails  of  Grant's  mid-winter  exploit.  The  more  it  be 
came  public  property  the  bigger  and  more  popular  it 
grew. 

There  had  been  no  co-operation  on  part  of  Buell's 
forces  to  the  east.  There  had  been  only  opposition  on 

176 


THE  REWARDS  OF  DONELSON 

part  of  Halleck  almost  to  the  last,  although  it  is  ad 
mitted  that,  when  finally  committed  to  the  move,  Hal 
leck  did  what  he  could  to  reinforce  his  field  captain; 
but  neither  was  needed — Grant  "  won  out "  without  a 
hand  from  Buell  or  a  man  from  Halleck — the  hand  and 
the  man  came  only  after  Donelson  was  ours. 

It  is  true  that  when  the  magnitude  of  the  achieve 
ment  dawned  upon  Halleck  and  he  realized  how  very 
much  greater  was  Grant  in  the  public  eye  than  any  other 
man  at  the  front,  or  even  himself  at  St.  Louis,  he  then 
had  the  sense  to  second  the  overwhelming  nomination  of 
the  people  and  suggest  the  promotion  of  Grant.  But 
even  then  he  could  not  single  him  out  as  he  should  have 
done.  "  Make  Buell,  Grant  and  Pope  major-generals  of 
volunteers,"  he  wired  to  the  War  Department.  Mark 
the  order  in  which  they  are  named ;  consider  what  each 
had  thus  far  accomplished,  and  defend  it  if  it  can  be 
defended.  Buell  had  been  drilling  and  organizing  in 
Kentucky,  and  with  abundant  men  holding  a  line  in 
front  of  Louisville.  Pope  had  been  commanding  a  dis 
trict  in  Missouri,  both  doing  loyal,  valuable,  but  com 
paratively  passive  service.  Grant  had  been  active  as  a 
terrier  from  the  very  start,  a  leader  in  aggressive  moves 
against  the  hostile  forces  in  the  field,  personally  com 
manding  in  two  spirited  battles,  Donelson  resulting  in 
the  utter  demolition  of  the  enemy's  stronghold,  in  pierc 
ing  the  enemy's  centre,  and  in  widespread  consternation 
and  dismay  in  the  South,  in  opening  the  two  great  rivers 
leading  into  the  heart  of  Tennessee,  in  compelling  the 
evacuation  of  Bowling  Green  to  the  east,  and  Columbus 
to  the  west,  both  of  them  "  turned,"  and  all  of  this 
brought  about  by  sheer  fighting  against  entrenched  and 
equal  foes.  There  had  been  absolutely  nothing  to 
match,  nothing  to  approximate  it,  yet  nevertheless,  said 
Halleck,  "  Make  Buell,  Grant  and  Pope  major-generals 
of  volunteers,  and  give  me  the  command  of  the  West. 
I  ask  this  in  return  for  Forts  Henry  and  Donelson." 
12  177 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

It  is  unnecessary  to  comment  upon  that  despatch. 
It  is  significant  that  the  wise  and  inspired  head  of  the 
nation  fathomed  it  and  followed  his  own  conclusions. 
Just  one  name  was  at  once  sent  to  the  Senate  for  recog 
nition  as  the  result  of  Donelson.  In  the  clear  mind  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  no  vestige  of  doubt  beclouded  the 
right  of  the  commander  on  the  spot — the  man  who 
planned  and  persevered,  who  personally  led  the  fighting 
line,  and  finally  forced  that  unconditional  surrender. 
Ulysses  S.  Grant  was  named  Major-General  of  Volun 
teers  to  date  from  February  i6th,  and  was  as  promptly 
and  unanimously  confirmed  by  the  Senate. 

Later  on,  along  in  March,  when  all  the  reports  were 
received,  there  were  other  and  deserved  rewards  for 
Donelson.  McClernand,  Smith  and  Wallace,  five  weeks 
after  Grant,  were  accorded  their  double  stars — Buell 
and  Pope  going  up  with  them,  so  that  they,  too,  prac 
tically  owed  their  promotion  to  Donelson  and  to  Grant, 
as  nothing  else  outside  of  Halleck's  recommendation 
had  occurred  to  call  for  it — Pope  having  only  just  be 
gun  at  Island  No.  10,  and  Buell  not  yet  having  ventured 
a  battle.  Quite  a  little  crop  of  brigadiers,  too,  sprang 
from  the  battling  ranks  of  Donelson ;  five  Illinois  colo 
nels — Oglesby,  Cooke,  W.  H.  L.  Wallace,  McArthur 
and  Logan  rising  to  the  stars,  also  Lauman,  of  Iowa. 
So,  too,  on  this  date  there  were  others  for  which  Don 
elson  was  not  the  cause,  but  the  opportunity,  as  in  the 
case  of  Grant's  classmate  and  fellow  captain  of  the 
Fourth  Infantry  at  Fort  Humboldt,  Henry  M.  Judah, 
colonel  Fourth  California ;  so,  too,  "  Bob "  McCook, 
of  Ohio,  Speed  S.  Fry,  of  Kentucky,  VanCleve,  of 
Minnesota,  and  Manson  of  Indiana,  who  had  fought 
with  Thomas  at  Mill  Springs,  but  in  spite  of  that 
spirited  little  victory  no  reward  as  yet  had  come  to 
Thomas.  On  that  same  date,  March  2ist,  Samuel  R. 
Curtis,  of  Iowa,  had  been  made  major-general  for  the 
Pea  Ridge  battle,  but  not  until  a  month  after  the  re- 

178 


THE  REWARDS  OF  DONELSON 

wards  of  Mill  Springs  and  Donelson  and  Pea  Ridge 
had  been  confirmed  by  the  Senate  could  an  over  sus 
picious  and  obdurate  War  Secretary  see  his  way  to 
signing  the  commission  of  George  H.  Thomas  as  major- 
general.  The  man  who  planned  and  fought  and  com 
manded  and  won  at  Mill  Springs,  nearly  a  month  be 
fore  McClernand,  Smith  and  Wallace  fought  as  sub 
ordinates  at  Donelson,  got  his  major-generalship  a 
month  behind  them.  Only  four  colonels  fought  under 
Thomas  at  Mill  Springs,  and  all  four  were  rewarded 
a  month  ahead  of  him.  However,  this  is  opening 
another  story.  Few  men  except  those  who  served 
under  George  H.  Thomas  knew  him  at  his  full  worth; 
even  Grant  came  to  misjudge  and  almost  to  wrong  him, 
and  if  one  as  just  and  appreciative  as  Grant  could  fail 
to  appreciate  Thomas,  what  could  be  expected  of  Stan- 
ton,  who  misjudged  so  many  and  suspected  all? 

And  so  Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  applauding  North 
made  it  obvious  that  whatsoever  Halleck  might  think 
or  say  or  ascribe  to  himself,  the  name  that  deserved 
to  be  heralded  foremost  in  connection  with  Donelson 
was  that  of  Grant.  It  was  the  only  name  for  many 
days  that  was  heard,  and  Grant's  headquarters  were 
bombarded  with  telegrams,  letters  and  messages  of  con 
gratulation,  sometimes  coupled  with  suggestion,  and  fre 
quently  with  request  for  favors.  Grant's  headquarters 
were  besieged  by  callers,  visitors,  gifts  and  correspond 
ents.  Callers  were  made  welcome  and  entertained  as 
far  as  it  was  possible  with  the  means  at  hand.  Grant 
at  first  chatted  frankly  and  cheerily  in  his  open-hearted 
way  with  any  and  all  comers,  with  the  result  that  all 
manner  of  misquotations  began  to  appear  in  the  public 
press,  and  Rawlins  took  alarm  and  occasion  to  warn 
his  chief.  Gifts,  almost  the  first  he  had  ever  known, 
came,  heartily  tendered  and  frankly  and  gratefully  re 
ceived,  but  correspondents  thereafter  were  not,  and 
censors  innumerable  have  declared  that  Grant  would 

179 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

have  been  wiser  had  he  reversed  the  issue,  declined  the 
gifts,  but  received  the  correspondents.  The  gifts  in 
cluded  creature  comforts  of  many  kinds,  especially 
cigars,  for  that  unlighted  weed  with  which  he  galloped 
to  the  front  at  Donelson  had  started  the  story  that 
Grant  was  an  inveterate  smoker — something  he  never 
had  been,  though  when  first  employed  about  Springfield 
he  cherished  a  grimy  little  meerschaum  pipe.  But  after 
Donelson  cigars  poured  in  by  the  thousand  and  Grant 
and  his  staff  could  not  even  by  assiduous  effort  begin 
to  consume  them. 

The  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Army  and  Navy 
had  gone  further  in  his  reward  and  recognition  of 
Grant.  He  had  ordained,  dating  from  February  I5th, 
that  the  Military  District  of  the  Tennessee  should  be 
given  to  that  officer,  and  as  no  limits  were  assigned,  and 
as  Halleck  had  not  yet  at  least  been  announced  as  in  su 
preme  command  in  the  West,  the  victor  of  Donelson 
found  himself  charged  with  new  and  important  duties 
and  responsible  for  all  that  might  occur  in  a  wide  range 
of  territory.  Many  men  would  have  become  inflated 
with  importance,  and  many  more  would  have 
looked  upon  it  as  an  independent  command.  Grant 
was  level-headed ;  he  did  neither.  Men  about  him  and 
his  staff — not  Rawlins — pointed  out  that  of  all  the 
generals  now  on  duty  not  one  stood  as  high  in  public 
estimation  as  he,  and  that  Halleck,  Fremont  and  even 
McClellan  might  well  look  to  their  laurels  and  be 
jealous.  Fremont  had  failed  and  been  superseded  in 
Missouri.  Halleck  had  simply  thwarted  and  obstructed. 
McClellan  had  built  up  and  assembled  a  magnificent 
army,  but  kept  it  cooped  about  the  encircling  forts  of 
Washington.  People  east  and  west  were  chafing  at  the 
inaction  along  the  Potomac,  and  all  the  North  was  hail 
ing  Grant  as  the  one  man  who  really  "  did  things." 

Then  there  were  other  considerations.  He  had 
stepped  from  behind  the  counter  of  a  country  store  to 

180 


THE  REWARDS  OF  DONELSON 

the  command  of  a  regiment,  had  been  named  nineteenth 
on  the  list  of  brigadier-generals,  first  appointed,  and 
of  all  that  list  of  forty  brigadiers  he  was  the  first  to 
rise  to  the  grade  of  major-general.  Where  were  the 
men  who  had  forced  him  from  the  service  years  be 
fore?  Neither  one  of  them  had  yet  been  mentioned  for 
even  a  brigade  command  and  one  of  them  never  would 
be.  If  Ulysses  Grant  had  picked  up  the  troops  along 
the  Tennessee  and  gone  careering  off  after  Polk  and 
Sidney  Johnston,  then  marching  to  the  defense  of  Nash 
ville,  all  the  North  would  probably  have  applauded, 
whether  Halleck  approved  it  or  not. 

But  Grant  was  a  graduate  of  West  Point,  schooled  in 
discipline  and  subordination.  Halleck  was  still  his 
superior,  and  therefore  to  Halleck  in  all  deference 
Grant  submitted  his  next  plans.  It  was  his  profound 
conviction  that  a  strong  column  sent  southward  at  once 
would  split  the  Confederacy  in  twain,  would  find  hun 
dreds  of  adherents  to  the  old  flag,  would  crush  the 
rebellion  in  the  West  and  cripple  the  Richmond  govern 
ment  beyond  repair.  It  was  his  belief  that  the  South 
staggered  under  the  blow  of  Donelson,  and  that  sound 
generalship  demanded  instant  pursuit  and  incessant 
pounding. 

With  this  purpose  in  view  Grant  had  pushed  C.  F. 
Smith,  his  surest  division  commander,  forward  to 
Clarksville  on  the  Tennessee.  Then  he  deemed  it  neces 
sary  to  personally  meet  and  confer  with  Buell,  who  by 
this  time  should  be  close  at  the  heels  of  the  retiring 
Confederates  and  camped  over  against  Nashville.  All 
this  was  absolutely  within  his  rights.  With  Smith 
commanding  his  advance  and  Tecumseh  Sherman  look 
ing  after  communications  at  the  rear,  his  rough-hewn 
army  of  Westerners  seemed  in  the  best  of  hands.  Now 
for  a  blow  at  Nashville — the  Richmond  of  the  West, 
a  position  of  the  same  relative  importance  on  the  one 

181 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

side  of  the  Alleghenies  as  was  the  Confederate  capital 
on  the  other. 

But  here  came  a  strange  and  most  unlooked-for 
misadventure.  Loyally  and  subordinately  had  Grant  re 
ported  his  movements  and  intentions  to  his  senior  in 
St.  Louis.  All  proper  telegrams  and  written  reports 
and  returns  had  been  prepared  in  his  field  office  and 
placed  in  the  hands  of  the  government  telegrapher,  or 
in  custody  of  its  mail  agents.  It  seemed  odd  that  from 
Halleck  there  came  no  word  of  acknowledgment  or 
commendation.  It  seemed  odd  that  there  should  be  no 
response  to  Grant's  urgent  request  for  steamers  to  en 
able  him  to  move  his  men  at  once  to  Nashville.  Smith 
had  found  Clarksville  abandoned.  Buell  had  found  Sid 
ney  Johnston  retiring  southward  from  Nashville.  It 
was  most  important  that  Grant  in  person  should  hasten 
to  the  front,  yet  no  reply  whatever  had  come  to  his 
despatch  suggesting  that  "  unless  otherwise  ordered  " 
he  would  take  Nashville  about  March  1st.  Then  when 
tidings  came  of  its  occupation  by  Nelson's  division  of 
Buell's  army,  Grant  further  wired  that  he  would  him 
self  go  thither  on  February  28th  "if  no  orders  came  to 
the  contrary,"  and  thither  accordingly  he  went,  and 
with  most  surprising  and  disheartening  results. 

All  these  days  a  traitorous  official  in  the  telegraph 
office  had  been  suppressing  certain  of  Grant's  mes 
sages  to  Halleck  and  Halleck's  to  Grant — the  latter  be 
coming  more  and  more  acrid  as  they  seemed  to  pro 
duce  no  effect,  and  just  at  the  time  when,  in  the  full 
flood  of  his  triumph,  the  new  commander  of  the 
District  of  the  Tennessee  was  vigorously  at  work  at  the 
extreme  front,  planning  swift  concentration  of  Buell's 
finely-drilled  brigades  with  his  own  rough-and-ready 
campaigners,  far  to  the  rear  the  wires  between  St.  Louis 
and  Washington,  between  Halleck  and  McClellan,  were 
humming  with  schemes  for  his  undoing.  The  general 
in  chief  command  in  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi — he 

182 


THE  REWARDS  OF  DONELSON 

whom  McClellan  later  described  as  "  the  most  hope 
lessly  stupid  official  "  he  ever  met,  and  a  man  destitute 
of  military  ideas — he  whom  the  soldiers,  ignorant  of  all 
these  happenings,  and  impressed  mainly  by  the  gravity 
and  deliberation  of  his  movements,  later  christened 
"  Old  Brains,"  he  who  was  indebted  mainly  to  Grant 
for  the  successes  achieved  in  his  military  bailiwick, 
was  wiring  McClellan,  still  in  chief  command  of  all 
our  forces  in  the  field,  words  to  the  effect  that  ever 
since  Donelson  Grant  had  ignored  him,  that  Grant 
without  his  authority  had  quit  his  command  and  gone  to 
Nashville,  that  Grant,  "  satisfied  with  his  victory,  sits 
down  and  enjoys  it  without  any  regard  for  the  future. 
I  am  worn  out  and  tired  out  with  this  neglect  and  in 
efficiency."  This  of  the  man  who  had  almost  worn 
himself  out  trying  to  get  Halleck  to  let  him  do  anything, 
and  who  was  now  fairly  brimming  over  with  eagerness 
and  impatience  to  do  more. 

And  McClellan,  he  who,  secure  in  his  high  place, 
could  find  no  time  or  inclination  to  listen  to  appeals  for 
action  coming  from  the  over-patient  President,  or  for 
justice,  coming  from  his  imprisoned  comrade,  Stone 
(another  victim  of  calumny  unqualified),  he  who  pos 
sibly  recalled  old  days  in  the  quartermaster's  cabin  at 
Vancouver,  and  lent  ready  ear  to  rumor  of  renewed 
lapses,  wired  back  to  Halleck  authority  to  arrest  Grant 
and  relieve  him  of  his  command. 

If  this,  as  said  a  Christian  gentleman  and  gallant 
soldier,  "  wasn't  enough  to  make  a  saint  swear,  nothing 
else  could  be,"  and  yet  it  is  a  matter  of  fact  and  record 
that,  when  it  all  came  to  the  ears  of  Grant,  he  never 
so  much  as  uttered  an  expletive.  But  what  C.  F.  Smith 
and  Sherman  said  of  that  episode  and  of  Halleck  would 
make  in  both  cases  interesting,  and  in  one  inflammably 
lurid,  reading.  Like  Grant,  Smith  was  averse  to  blas 
phemy  ;  Sherman  was  an  impetuous  expert. 

And  so  for  a  time,  thanks  partially  to  the  treason  of 
183 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

the  telegrapher,  who  fled  southward  between  two  days, 
bearing  the  suppressed  dispatches  with  him,  but  due 
quite  as  much  to  the  prejudice,  the  distrust  and  pos 
sibly  the  jealousy  of  Halleck  and  the  credulity  of 
McGellan;  thanks,  too,  it  must  be  owned,  to  the  fact 
that  there  had  been  times  when  McClellan  had  seen 
and  Halleck  had  known  Grant's  over-indulgence  in 
liquor,  the  man  of  the  hour  stood  temporarily  discred 
ited  at  headquarters  of  the  armies  of  the  United  States, 
but  not  in  the  hearts  of  the  people. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
FROM  DONELSON  TO  SHILOH 

"  I  FEEL  myself  competent  to  command  a  regiment/' 
Grant  had  written  to  the  War  Department  in  May,  '61, 
but  officers  of  his  staff  say  that  while  at  Cairo,  before 
Donelson,  he  wished  that  he  had  a  brigade  of  cavalry 
in  Virginia ;  he  believed  he  could  "  do  things  "  with 
such  a  command,  and,  left  to  himself  and  his  own  de 
vices,  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  he  could.  Placed 
under  McClellan,  who  knew  no  use  whatever  for 
cavalry,  he  would  have  had  no  chance,  and  now,  placed 
in  command  along  the  Tennessee  where  he  had  no 
cavalry  worth  mention,  he  was  speedily  in  position  to 
need  it  at  the  front  quite  as  much  as  he  had  need  of 
friends  at  the  rear.  It  is  characteristic  of  Grant  that 
he  rose  superior  to  the  need,  both  in  front  and  rear,  and 
got  along  without  either. 

Not  for  nearly  a  fortnight  did  the  situation  clear 
itself  along  the  Tennessee,  but  meantime  Sidney  John 
ston  had  retired,  unpursued  and  unmolested,  to  Mur- 
freesboro,  and  then  still  southward.  History  has  failed 
to  mention  the  rewards  heaped  upon  a  certain  Southern 
sympathizer  in  Northern  service — that  elusive  teleg 
rapher — when  he  reached,  as  we  are  told,  the  Southern 
lines,  "  bearing  his  sheaves  with  him  " — all  those  mes 
sages  which  should  have  passed  between  Grant  and 
Halleck.  If  the  breaking  up  of  an  aggressive  cam 
paign  and  the  creation  of  illimitable  discord  in  the 
camps  of  the  enemy  are  legitimate  acts  of  war,  that 
faithless  employe  of  the  United  States  had  abundantly 
served  the  South.  Possibly  such  men  as  Sidney  John 
ston,  Polk  and  Hardee  cold  shouldered  such  methods. 

185 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

As  Philip  Kearny  said  early  in  '61,  "  It  is  a  gentleman's 
war,"  and  as  such  they  sought  to  keep  it. 

Astonished  and  humiliated,  Grant  had  received  the 
curt  order  assigning  to  Smith  the  command  of  opera 
tions  along  the  Tennessee,  and  the  intimation  that  he, 
the  conqueror  of  Donelson,  would  be  expected  to  remain 
at  Fort  Henry.  "  Why  do  you  not  render  the  reports 
repeatedly  called  for  ?  "  was  the  telegraphic  inquiry  that 
finally  opened  his  eyes  to  the  fact  that  before  desert 
ing  the  telegrapher  had  been  faithless  to  his  trust.  Then 
in  all  subordination  Grant  sent  copies  of  the  despatches 
previously  penned.  Then  the  senior  major-general, 
much  perturbed,  began  gradually  to  realize  that  all  these 
things  he  had  been  saying  to  McClellan  in  condemna 
tion  of  Grant  were  actually  without  foundation.  Then 
it  as  gradually  dawned  upon  him  that  grievous  wrong 
had  been  done  a  loyal,  gallant  and  most  efficient  sub 
ordinate,  and  then,  it  seems,  "  Old  Brains  "  (not  yet 
so  nicknamed)  was  at  his  wit's  end  to  "square  him 
self,"  as  soldiers  say,  with  his  superiors  at  the  War 
Department  and  with  his  junior  in  rank,  yet  superior  in 
soldiership,  at  the  front.  He  had  little  difficulty  in  set 
tling  with  the  former.  He  could  throw  much  of  the 
blame  upon  the  telegraph  operator.  He  need  have  had 
no  difficulty,  though  there  might  have  been  deserved 
embarrassment,  in  setting  with  his  wronged  and  ag 
grieved  junior.  A  frank,  straightforward  statement 
would  have  done  it  and  swept  away  at  once  the  cloud 
that  long  had  hovered  and  that  now  and  henceforth 
lowered  between  Halleck  himself  and  his  most  dis 
tinguished  junior,  soon  destined  to  become  his  superior 
officer.  Moreover,  Halleck  had  with  him  as  friend,  ad 
viser,  chief -of -staff  and  fellow  graduate,  his  elder  by 
six  years  in  the  army  and  decidedly  his  better  in  counsel 
—George  W.  Cullum,  of  the  Class  of  '33.  If  Cullum 
had  heard  the  stories  to  Grant's  detriment  he  had  little 
heeded  them,  and  while  Halleck  had  found  no  words 

1 86 


FROM  DONELSON  TO  SHILOH 

in  which  to  commend  and  congratulate  the  victor  of 
Donelson,  Cullum  had  penned  most  cordial  and  graceful 
expression  of  appreciation.  Cullum  gloried  and  re 
joiced  in  Grant's  exploit.  It  was  a  feather  in  the  cap 
of  the  Alma  Mater  he  loved.  Cullum,  who  had  won 
Grant's  trust  and  gratitude,  could  speedily  have  mended 
the  now  serious  breach  between  the  two  major-generals 
of  the  West.  An  honest,  soldierly  statement  of  the 
rumors  that  had  reached  St.  Louis  and  of  the  reports 
and  despatches  that  had  not — of  Halleck's  consequent 
embarrassment  and  distress,  resulting  in  his  having 
reported  to  McClellan  the  rumors  as  they  were  reported 
to  him — these,  with  as  frank  and  soldierly  an  expres 
sion  of  regret,  would  have  ended  the  trouble  then  and 
there.  Grant  was  far  too  sensible  of  the  weakness  that 
had  been  his,  and  far  too  broad,  generous  and  magnani 
mous  to  blame  any  man  for  believing  as  Halleck  be 
lieved  in  the  silence  that  fell  after  Donelson. 

But  Halleck  was  not  man  enough  for  this.  He 
could  stoop  to  subterfuge,  but  not  to  a  subordinate. 
Explanation  he  had  to  make,  and  he  who  had  asked  the 
supreme  command  in  the  West,  "  in  return  for  Henry 
and  Donelson,"  excused  himself  to  Grant  for  having 
relieved  him  of  the  charge  of  operations  up  the  Ten 
nessee,  because  the  War  Department  had  been  worry 
ing  over  his  failure  to  communicate,  to  the  end  that 
McClellan  had  ordered  his  arrest  and  full  investigation 
as  to  his  alleged  "  condition."  All  this,  said  Halleck, 
had  been  stopped  by  his  personal  intervention — all  this, 
he  had  the  deep  sagacity  not  to  say,  had  been  initiated 
by  his  personal  reports. 

And  so  after  twenty  days  of  confusion,  days  precious 
to  the  cause  yet  lost  to  the  country,  Grant  resumed 
control  at  the  front,  believing  McClellan  the  enemy  who 
had  downed  him  in  mid  career,  and  Halleck  the  friend 
who  had  interposed  to  save,  and  somehow  Grant  did 

187 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

not  wish  to  be  indebted  to  Halleck.  As  for  Halleck, 
there  is  the  old  saying  that  he  who  has  deeply  wronged 
a  man  grows  insensibly  to  hate  him.  Halleck  regarded 
Grant  with  no  such  vehement  dislike  as  that,  but,  hav 
ing  wronged  Grant,  he  was  ever  ready  to  accept  and  wel 
come  evidence  or  indication  that  after  all  he  was  right. 
And  so,  on  one  side  at  least,  there  was  leaning  toward 
the  later  and  renewed  humiliation  that  was  to  follow 
Shiloh.  Of  that  hereafter. 

On  the  other  hand,  consider  the  attitude  of  the  ag 
grieved  officer  in  the  case  and  compare  it  with  that  of 
his  accuser.  A  salient  characteristic  of  Ulysses  Grant 
was  absolute  truthfulness.  His  classmates  at  the  Point, 
his  associates  of  the  old  Fourth  Infantry,  his  chums 
at  Fort  Columbia,  in  the  days  of  his  pining  for  wife 
and  home,  his  despondency,  his  discontent  with  army 
life  and  his  occasional  resort  to  drink,  his  staff  through 
out  the  Civil  War  and  even  his  political  enemies  in  the 
years  that  followed,  all  bear  testimony  as  to  that.  Rufus 
Ingalls  and  General  Henry  L.  Hodges,  who  were  his 
house  mates  at  Columbia  Barracks  in  '53,  are  most 
emphatic  on  this  point.  Horace  Porter  in  his  inimitable 
Memoirs  tells  of  how  the  general-in-chief  of  all  the 
armies  impressed  every  one  about  him  with  the  minute 
accuracy  of  his  every  statement. 

It  must  be  insisted  that,  as  every  one  who  intimately 
knew  him  dwells  upon  this  rather  unusual  trait,  implicit 
confidence  should  attach  to  the  statement  made  in  his 
own  Memoirs  as  to  his  relations  with  Halleck,  and  it 
emphasizes  all  that  has  been  claimed  for  Grant's  mod 
esty,  patriotism  and  singleness  of  purpose. 

"  It  is  probable  that  the  general  opinion  was  that  Smith's 
long  services  in  the  army,  and  his  distinguished  deeds  rend 
ered  him  the  more  proper  person  for  the  command.  Indeed 
I  was  rather  inclined  to  this  opinion  myself  at  that  time,  and 
would  have  served  as  faithfully  under  Smith  as  he  had  done 
under  me." 

1 88 


FROM  DONELSON  TO  SHILOH 

O  that  unkind  fate  had  not  so  soon  thereafter 
robbed  Grant  of  that  chivalrous  second,  his  ideal  com 
mandant,  his  ideal  supporter!  A  pall  spread  over  the 
Army  of  the  Tennessee  that  bowed  all  heads  and  sad 
dened  all  hearts  when,  only  six  weeks  later,  gallant 
"  Charley  "  Smith  breathed  his  last,  almost  within  long 
gunshot  of  the  field  on  which  Albert  Sidney  Johnston, 
the  lion  of  the  Confederacy,  died  leading  the  last  charge 
of  the  Southern  line  at  Shiloh.  Physically  much  alike, 
tall,  slender,  sinewy,  and  one  at  least  "  handsome  as 
Apollo,"  these  two  soldiers  of  the  old  army  were  the 
heroes  of  their  men,  the  objects  of  their  unstinted 
admiration,  and  in  their  loss  in  the  midst  of  the  cam 
paign  of  the  spring  of  '62,  Death,  the  conqueror,  had 
taken  equal  toll  from  both  North  and  South  on  the 
banks  of  the  beautiful  Tennessee. 

In  the  same  paragraph  in  which  Grant  refers  to  the 
temporary  assignment  of  Smith  to  the  command,  he 
speaks  of  Halleck's  unfounded  accusation  at  his  own 
expense.  Never  until  after  the  war  did  he  learn  the 
true  story,  unearthed  by  Adam  Badeau  in  some  of  his 
researches  among  the  records  of  the  War  Department. 
Had  Grant  known  the  facts  when,  shortly  after  Shiloh, 
Halleck  a  second  time  relegated  the  now  grim  and 
silent  soldier  to  the  role  of  second  in  command,  the 
chances  are  that  Grant  would  have  abandoned  the  Army 
of  the  Tennessee  and  sought  another  field  for  his 
activities,  as  indeed  he  came  within  an  ace  of  doing 
when  at  Corinth;  but  here,  luckily,  Sherman  swayed 
and  stayed  him.  Grant  remained  at  his  unconspicuous 
post  until  a  few  months  had  demonstrated  Halleck's 
utter  inaptitude  for  fighting  in  the  field,  and  once  again 
the  command  of  his  old  army,  now  strongly  reinforced, 
fell  fortunately  to  Grant.  From  this  time  on,  until  pro 
moted  to  still  higher  sphere,  he  never  left  it. 

But  meantime  what  of  Shiloh?  Driven  back  by 
Grant  from  the  line,  Bowling  Green-Donelson-Henry 

189 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

and  Columbus,  to  a  line  stretching  from  Memphis  to 
ward  Chattanooga,  the  Confederates  had  been  further 
weakened  by  Pope's  success  in  March  at  New  Madrid. 
The  Memphis  &  Charleston  Railway,  running  east 
ward  through  northern  Mississippi  and  Alabama,  was 
crossed  at  Corinth,  Mississippi,  by  the  Mobile  &  Ohio, 
running  east  of  south  from  Columbus.  This  made 
Corinth  the  strategic  centre  of  the  Southwest.  Thither 
Sidney  Johnston  and  Breckinridge  had  marched  their 
legions,  and  thither,  as  March  wore  on,  Grant  desired 
to  head  his  column.  Corinth  lay  some  seventeen  miles 
west  from  the  great  elbow  of  the  Tennessee,  the  point 
where  the  stream,  after  long,  placid  flowing  from  the 
Gateway  of  the  Gods  through  the  fertile  fields  of 
northern  Alabama,  turns  sharply  and  suddenly  north 
ward  and  goes  winding  away  to  its  far  junction  with  the 
Ohio.  Navigable  for  light  draft,  stern-wheel,  river 
boats,  its  banks  were  dotted  here  and  there  by  wood 
piles,  with  attendant  log  cabins  ("landings"  in  the 
vernacular  of  the  river  men),  points  from  which 
country  roads  led  away  into  the  interior.  Tyler's  Land 
ing,  twenty-two  miles  east  of  north  from  Corinth,  lay 
just  at  the  northeast  corner  of  Mississippi.  Around 
the  long  bend  northward  into  Tennessee  and  some  ten 
miles  by  river,  lay  the  little  cluster  of  cabins  known 
as  Hamburg.  Four  miles  further  and  still  around 
another  bend  lay  still  another  little  bunch  of  woodpiles, 
cabins,  etc.,  perched  on  the  west  bank,  known  as  Pitts- 
burg.  Five  miles  northward  stood  Crumps,  and  about 
nine  miles  northeastward,  and  around  another  bend, 
yet  only  six  miles  as  the  crow  flies  from  the  Pittsburg 
Landing,  lay  on  the  opposite  side  the  hamlet  of 
Savannah. 

Exploring  the  Tennessee  shortly  after  the  surrender 
of  Fort  Henry,  a  daring  officer  of  our  navy,  Lieutenant 
Commander  Phelps,  had  run  his  gunboat  clear  to  Flor 
ence,  Alabama,  and  found  no  foe  worth  mention.  Scout- 

190 


FROM  DONELSON  TO  SHILOH 

ing  the  wood  roads  southward,  General  Smith  had  pene 
trated  to  Savannah,  and,  steaming  southward  up  the 
river  and  looking  for  camp  sites  for  his  men,  Tecumseh 
Sherman  had  pitched  upon  Pittsburg  as  the  place  of  all 
others.  It  was  only  twenty-two  miles  from  Corinth;  it 
was  high  and  dry,  drained  north  and  south  by  little 
creeks  between  which  lay  a  level  plateau,  with  plenty 
of  cleared  ground  for  camps,  plenty  of  wood,  water,  sun 
shine  and  fresh  air.  "  The  ground  admits  of  every  de 
fense  by  a  small  command,  and  yet  affords  admirable 
camping  ground  for  one  hundred  thousand  men,"  was 
what  Sherman  wrote  to  Grant  about  Patrick's  Day, 
the  1 7th  of  March,  while  Grant  was  still  somewhere 
down  stream.  Only  recently  restored  to  command,  he 
was  not  yet  restored  to  health,  for  he  had  suffered  a 
fit  of  illness,  an  attendant,  if  not  the  consequence,  of 
his  mistreatment.  Hurlbut's  division  was  the  first  to 
reach  and  debark  at  Pittsburg,  for  C.  F.  Smith  had 
promptly  approved  Sherman's  suggestion.  Easy  of  ac 
cess  by  river,  and  therefore  easily  supplied  from  the 
depots  at  Jeffersonville  and  Cairo,  it  was  also  an  easy 
matter  to  concentrate  there  the  entire  command.  It 
was  also  obviously  an  excellent  point  from  which  to 
strike  at  Corinth,  barely  a  day's  long  march  distant 
to  the  southwest. 

And  so  it  happened  that  while  Johnston,  Beauregard 
and  their  associates  were  already  assembling  their  forces 
at  Corinth,  an  army  somewhat  smaller  in  numbers  and 
with  many  new  and  uninstructed  levies,  was  disembark 
ing  and  encamping  at  Pittsburg  Landing.  And  so  it 
happened  that,  flushed  with  confidence  over  their 
triumphs  at  Donelson,  the  veteran  divisions  of  McCler- 
nand,  Lew  Wallace  and  Smith — the  latter  without  their 
heroic  leader,  whose  illness  had  already  compelled  his 
retention  at  Savannah — the  eager  men  of  Sherman,  and 
the  green,  undrilled  troops  of  Prentiss  were  all  encamped 
on  the  west,  or  what  might  be  called  the  enemy's,  bank 

191 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

of  the  stream,  and  here,  without  adequate  cavalry  to 
scout  the  approaches,  or  without  earthworks  to  com 
mand  them,  the  Army  of  the  Tennessee  lay  impatiently 
awaiting  the  coming  of  Buell's  untried  but  finely  dis 
ciplined  command — the  Army  of  the  Ohio ;  Grant,  eager 
to  assume  the  aggressive  at  once;  Halleck  compelling 
delay. 

A  word  now  as  to  those  two  great  armies  of  the 
West,  recruited  practically  from  the  same  communities, 
yet  schooled  and  molded  on  utterly  different  lines.  Al 
most  from  the  start  the  men  of  the  Tennessee  had  been 
marching,  skirmishing  and,  finally,  heavily  fighting. 
Their  weeks  of  drill  and  disciplinary  exercises  had  been 
few.  Their  weeks  of  rough  and  ready  life  in  bivouac,  in 
field  and  forest  had  been  many.  As  commentators,  civil 
and  soldier,  said  of  them  at  Donelson,  "  They  look  rough 
as  all  outdoors.'*  As  a  gifted  correspondent  and  ob 
server  later  wrote  of  them,  "  Hooker  once  boasted  that 
he  had  the  best  army  on  the  planet:  one  could  have 
declared  that  Grant  commanded  the  worst."  This  was 
simply  because  in  their  aggressive  Americanism,  and  in 
the  levelling  effect  of  life  in  the  "  bush  and  bivouac," 
the  men  of  Grant's  army  had  never  learned  or  had  else 
been  allowed  to  drop  all  semblance  of  the  soldierly  pomp, 
precision  and  ceremony  which  are  regarded  as  absolutely 
essential  to  discipline  where  foreign  troops  are  con 
cerned,  but  for  which  Grant  and  his  "  thinking  bay 
onets  "  had  apparently  no  use  whatever.  Himself  the 
least  pretentious  and  one  of  the  least  "  military "  of 
officers,  it  naturally  came  about  that  a  democratic,  free- 
and-easy,  hail-fellow,  fighting  spirit  animated  all  ranks 
in  the  Army  of  the  Tennessee,  and  Grant  approved,  and 
men  like  McClernand,  Sherman  and  Logan,  fairly 
gloried  in  it. 

But  very  different  was  the  atmosphere  of  the  Army 
of  the  Ohio.  From  the  very  start  their  leader  Buell, 
cold,  austere,  precise  and  punctilious,  had  insisted  on 

192 


FROM  DONELSON  TO  SHILOH 

the  observance  of  every  military  tradition  in  the  training 
of  his  officers  and  men.  Drills  had  been  incessant. 
Camps  were  policed  and  polished  until  they  rivalled 
the  tented  field  of  the  Corps  of  Cadets  on  the  Hudson. 
Parade,  pomp  and  ceremony,  less  dear  to  Buell  than  to 
Scott  or  McClellan,  were  nevertheless  insisted  upon  as 
absolutely  essential  to  the  formative  period  of  raw 
troops.  Buell  ruled  with  an  iron  hand,  punishing 
"  green  "  yet  influential  officers  in  a  way  that  presently 
won  him  the  fatal  antagonism  of  prominent  State  ex 
ecutives — Dennison  and  "  Dick  "  Yates,  but  especially 
Morton  of  Indiana.  Yet  Buell  "  stood  pat,"  pursued 
his  relentless  methods  to  the  last,  and  with  the  result 
that  by  the  early  spring  of  '62,  with  only  one  fight  of 
any  consequence  to  his  credit  (that  of  Thomas's  brigade 
at  Mill  Springs),  he  had  evolved  an  army  that  would 
have  done  credit  to  Frederick  the  Great.  The  divisions 
of  McCook,  Crittenden,  Nelson,  Wood  and  Thomas  vied 
with  each  other  in  the  accuracy  of  their  drill,  the  perfec 
tion  of  their  arms,  uniform  and  equipment,  the  pre 
cision  of  their  evolutions.  It  was  a  beautiful  command, 
and  it  contained  a  host  of  splendid  soldiers. 

But  we  saw  the  same  spirit  in  '61  along  the  Potomac, 
a  tendency  on  part  of  the  few  regiments  that  had  fought 
at  First  Bull  Run,  and  later  had  been  allowed  to  be 
come  ragged  and  out-at-elbows,  to  jeer  and  deride  the 
spick  and  span  regiments  presently  brigaded  or  camped 
alongside,  and  being  properly  clothed,  carefully  drilled 
and  studiously  disciplined,  were  incessantly  taunted  as 
"  tin  "  soldiers,  bandbox  and  butterfly  battalions,  "  par 
lor  pets,"  etc.,  by  their  seniors  of  a  month  or  two  only 
in  service.  The  Army  of  the  Tennessee  spoke  often  in 
derision  of  the  Army  of  the  Ohio,  never  stopping  to 
think  that  they  were  of  precisely  the  same  clay,  and 
utterly  scorning  the  theory  that  they  might  be  a  little 
bit  better,  because  of  better  molding.  There  is  no  school 
for  war  like  service  in  the  field,  was  the  faith  and  dictum 
J3  193 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

of  the  Army  of  the  Tennessee,  and  heaven  knows  those 
unkempt,  rough-hewn  fellows  had  fought  like  terriers 
for  Grant,  their  utterly  unpretentious  and  almost  equally 
unkempt  leader,  at  Donelson,  and  now  he  looked  to 
them  to  do  it  again. 

Yes,  in  spite  of  lack  of  martial  plumage  the  Army 
of  the  Tennessee  was  in  high  feather,  "  feeling  cocky," 
as  they  themselves  expressed  it,  disdainful  of  precau 
tion,  confident  of  success  and  scornful  of  outside  as 
sistance.  "  The  enemy  are  getting  saucy,"  wrote  Sher 
man,  from  the  front,  to  Grant  at  Savannah,  but  they 
were  no  more  saucy  than  were  the  thirty  thousand  crude 
volunteers  in  the  shapeless  blue  blouses,  or  queerly  cut 
straight  jackets,  encamped  haphazard  between  Shiloh 
church  on  Sherman's  front  and  Pittsburg  Landing  at  the 
rear — between  Snake  Creek,  beyond  which  lay  Lew 
Wallace's  division  at  the  north,  and  the  wooded  banks  of 
Lick  Creek  at  the  south. 

It  was  this  stage  of  the  game,  perhaps,  that  Moltke 
had  in  mind  when  he  spoke  of  the  armies  of  the  North 
and  South  as  "  armed  mobs."  Fully  expecting  to  take 
the  initiative  the  moment  Buell  was  within  supporting 
distance,  or  Halleck  would  permit,  Grant  was  still  at 
Savannah,  filled  with  far  more  anxiety  as  to  the  health 
of  Smith  than  the  security  of  the  men  at  the  front, 
when  on  the  5th  of  April  Nelson's  division  of  Buell's 
Army  came  trudging  in,  and  later  in  the  afternoon 
Buell  himself  arrived,  when,  oddly  enough,  this  soul 
of  punctilio  in  his  dealings  with  all  inferiors  thought  it 
unnecessary  to  call  and  report  to  his  senior  officer — 
Grant.  There  had  been  ominous  symptoms  in  the  woods 
to  the  west  and  southwest  of  Shiloh.  Lew  Wallace,  too, 
had  reported  a  strong  force  of  Confederates  ap 
parently  reconnoitring  in  front  of  him  on  April  4th. 
Sherman's  brigade  lost  an  officer  to  an  enterprising 
squadron  of  Forrest's  cavalry,  and  some  of  Sherman's 
men  declared  they  saw  the  bayonets  of  infantry  further 

194 


FROM  DONELSON  TO  SHILOH 

back  in  the  bush.  Rabbits  and  squirrels  came  bounding 
in  from  that  direction  as  though  driven  from  their 
haunts  by  invading  enemies,  and  still  it  did  not  dawn 
upon  our  generals  at  the  front,  or  appear  to  Grant  at 
the  distant  rear,  that  Sidney  Johnston  and  all  his  men 
were  simply  anticipating  the  move  which  Grant  had 
planned  at  their  expense.  In  the  light  of  later  day 
wisdom,  it  seems  strange  that  neither  to  Grant  nor  Sher 
man  had  it  occurred  that  the  Confederate  leader  by 
April  ist  must  know  of  their  presence  in  his  front,  with 
an  unfordable  river  behind  the  Army  of  the  Tennessee, 
and  separating  it  from  that  of  the  Ohio,  still  several 
marches  distant.  It  seems  strange  that  Grant  did  not 
believe  Johnston  capable  of  doing  that  which  he  him 
self  would  have  been  sure  to  do — namely,  advance 
promptly  to  the  overthrow  of  the  men  of  the  Tennessee 
before  they  could  be  joined  by  the  men  of  the  Ohio ; 
but  that  is  just  what  Johnston  essayed  to  do,  and  might 
possibly  have  made  an  overwhelming  success,  but  for 
slow  and  dawdling  marches,  but  for  the  fighting  spirit 
of  that  "  devil-may-care  outfit,"  the  Army  of  the  Ten 
nessee.  Starting  on  April  2nd,  with  Shiloh  church  less 
than  twenty  miles  away,  not  until  Sunday  morning, 
April  6th,  were  his  exuberant,  untrained,  unterrified 
Southerners  straightened  out  in  three  long  lines  and 
ready  to  attack.  Then  at  last  the  advance  was  sounded, 
and  at  half  after  six  the  memorable  Battle  of  Shiloh — 
the  bloodiest  in  the  West,  started  in  good  earnest.  "  Be 
fore  night,"  said  one  of  their  gifted  leaders,  "  we'll 
water  our  horses  in  the  Tennessee  or  hell." 


CHAPTER  XIX 
SHILOH— THE  ONE  SURPRISE 

THE  nation  knows  the  story  of  that  tumultuous  Sun 
day  meeting  at  Shiloh  church.  Many  of  Sherman's 
men  were  still  abed  when  the  startling  summons  came — 
a  reveille  such  as  they  had  never  heard  before.  The 
veterans,  as  they  called  themselves,  of  McClernand  and 
Smith  were  less  taken  aback.  They  had  heard  the  far- 
famed,  far-reaching  rebel  yell  at  Donelson.  Moreover, 
they  were  camped  far  to  the  rear  of  the  foremost  bri 
gades  and  had  abundant  time  in  which  to  breakfast  and 
form  ranks  and  march  to  aid  their  fellows  at  the  front. 
The  men  of  Prentiss,  many  of  whom  never  yet  had 
rammed  home  a  ball  cartridge  or  felt  the  kick  of  a 
Springfield,  had  been  called  to  arms  at  dawn,  and  were 
listening  in  amaze  to  the  crash  of  musketry  and  the 
ear-piercing  chorus  to  their  right,  where  the  tide  of  as 
sault  first  broke  on  the  lines  of  Sherman's  centre,  and 
the  first  sight  of  the  blood-red  battle  flags,  the  first 
shell  bursting  in  their  midst  from  the  haze  of  sulphur 
smoke  along  the  fringe  of  timber  in  front  of  them, 
shook  their  nerve  and  stampeded  horses,  mules  and 
many  a  man,  and  yet  in  all  that  desperate  day's  work, 
no  more  desperate,  determined  fighting  was  done  than 
later  by  Prentiss  himself  and  the  devoted  men  whom  he 
was  able  to  rally  about  him. 

It  is  as  difficult  to  describe  that  morning's  battle  as 
to  account  for  it.  It  seems  incredible  now  that  the 
Southern  host  had  been  able  to  march  up,  form  for 
action  within  a  mile  of  our  lines,  and  do  it  with  so  much 
undisciplined  straggling,  shooting  and  shouting  that 
P>eauregard  begged  of  his  chief  to  call  off  the  whole 
affair  and  hark  back  to  Corinth.  It  was  impossible,  said 

196 


SHILOH— THE  ONE  SURPRISE 

he,  that  the  federal  troops  could  be  in  ignorance,  even 
though  Jordan,  his  chief  of  staff,  assured  him  that  he 
had  ascertained  that  Sherman's  men  were  not  en 
trenched — were  utterly  unsuspicious.  "  It  is  incredible," 
said  Beauregard,  "  it  means  that  Buell  has  reinforced 
Grant — that  they  have  full  seventy  thousand  lying  in 
wait  for  us — that  they  are  simply  leading  us  into  a  trap." 

But  Sidney  Johnston  had  come  to  fight  and  fight  hard, 
as  heaven  knows  they  fought,  and  could  he  have  struck 
two  days,  or  even  one  day  earlier,  before  Nelson,  Crit- 
tenden  and  McCook,  of  Buell's  army,  were  fairly  within 
supporting  distance,  the  Army  of  the  Tennessee  might 
have  been  driven  into  the  river  from  which  it  took  its 
name.  The  rains,  the  roads  and  the  flooded  ravines 
were  all  against  Johnston,  and  when  he  struck,  although 
he  struck  an  unprepared  and  unexpectant  line,  and  sent 
its  cowards  and  weaklings  whirling  toward  the  river, 
he  presently  found  himself  battering  at  tough  and  elastic 
barriers  that  hit  back  as  hard  as  iie,  that  yielded  slowly, 
yet  dealt  heavy  blows  even  in  retiring — the  "  solid  men  " 
of  the  Tennessee  that  finally  held  fast  and  firm,  for  the 
Northerners  had  still  their  chosen  leader;  the  South 
erners  had  lost  theirs. 

Buell  it  will  be  remembered,  had  been  marching 
since  mid  March  to  join  Grant  on  the  Tennessee;  the 
latter  had  been  halted  there  waiting  Halleck's  pleasure. 
Little  by  little  the  force  on  the  west  bank  had  been  in 
creased  until  by  April  2nd  Grant's  daily  visits  showed 
him  five  divisions  in  camp  between  the  bounding  creeks, 
and  still  another,  Lew  Wallace's,  to  the  northward.  The 
old  divisions,  Hurlbut's,  McGernand's  and  Smith's 
(W.  H.  Wallace  commanding),  camped  on  the  interior 
lines;  the  new  divisions,  Sherman's  and  Prentiss' — the 
latter  still  incomplete — had  been  thrust  further  out  to 
ward  the  south  and  west.  This  seems  strange.  Halleck 
was  expected  any  day.  He  had  written  Buell  he  would 
start  "  the  first  of  the  coming  week,"  but  Grant  had 

197 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

looked  for  his  earlier  coming.  Intrenching  as  a  pre 
caution  had  been  suggested  to  Grant,  and  his  gifted 
young  engineer,  McPherson,  had  been  directed  to  make 
preliminary  tracings.  But,  "  what's  the  use?"  was  the 
other  side  of  the  question.  "  We  are  going  to  advance 
to-morrow  or  the  next  day."  It  seems  never  to  have 
occurred  to  any  one  that  they  might  be  going  to  retreat, 
or  that  any  one  contemplated  such  a  thing  as  attacking 
them.  Grant  and  Sherman,  the  two  schooled  generals 
at  the  front,  are  explicit  on  this  head.  On  Saturday,  the 
5th,  said  Sherman  to  Grant,  "  I  do  not  apprehend  any 
thing  like  an  attack  on  our  position."  On  Saturday 
evening  the  5th,  said  Grant  to  Halleck  (both  of  course 
in  despatches)  :  "I  have  scarcely  the  faintest  idea  of 
an  attack  (general)  being  made  upon  us."  And  so  when 
twelve  hours  later  the  general  attack  was  made,  although 
Sherman  has  stoutly  maintained  they  were  not  sur 
prised,  it  may  be  hazarded  that  they  were  astonished. 
The  wonder  of  it  is  and  was  that,  being  unintrenched, 
unexpectant  and  almost  unprepared,  the  Army  of  the 
Tennessee  as  a  whole  put  up  the  magnificent  fight  that 
it  unquestionably  did.  That  was,  after  all,  the  greatest 
surprise  of  Shiloh. 

Yes,  even  though  two  colonels  of  new  regiments  ran 
like  the  rabbits  that  came  darting  in,  and  their  men  saw 
and  followed.  Yes,  even  though  stragglers  and  slightly 
wounded  to  the  number  of  three  to  four  thousand  hud 
dled  under  the  bank  back  at  the  Landing,  in  panic  and 
in  terror.  Yes,  even  though  one  light  battery,  officers 
and  men,  abandoned  guns,  caissons  and  everything,  and 
fled  in  dismay  when  the  first  Southern  shell  exploded 
in  their  midst.  Yes,  even  though  there  was  conster 
nation  and  confusion  in  the  rear  of  many  a  brigade  and 
battalion,  yet,  acting  often  independently,  brigades, 
regiments  and  detached  batteries  fought  fearlessly, 
savagely,  long  hours  at  a  time,  often  against  superior 
numbers,  filling  the  ravines  with  Confederate  dead  and 

198 


SHILOH— THE  ONE  SURPRISE 

wounded,  inflicting  damage  fully  equal  to  that  which 
they  sustained;  yet,  in  the  thick  of  the  morning  battle, 
as  Sherman's  lines  slowly  fell  back,  McClernand,  with 
his  Donelson  veterans  in  line,  advanced  sturdily,  while 
everything  to  their  right  and  left  was  in  sullen  retreat, 
and  actually  checked,  then  forcefully  drove,  a  flushed 
and  rejoiceful  enemy  full  half  a  mile  back  upon  its 
reserves.  And  yet,  again,  after  Grant's  arrival  on  the 
field,  and  his  placid,  cigar-puffing  conferences  with  gen 
eral  after  general  as  he  rode  the  rear  of  his  remaining 
lines,  there  were  instances  of  tenacious  "  stands  "  in  spite 
of  heavy  loss,  inflicting  heavier  loss  upon  the  foe,  to  the 
end  that  by  dozens  there  were  Southern  commands  so 
fearfully  crippled  that  what  was  left  of  them  had  to  be 
withdrawn  from  the  fight.  And  yet,  when  the  Con 
federates  were  enabled  at  points  to  burst  a  way  through 
and  completely  outflank  sturdily  battling  brigades  along 
the  Union  line,  there  were  many  commands  that  took 
heart  from  the  quiet,  imperturbable  leader  who  came 
along  the  lines  bidding  them  "  hang  on,  we'll  beat  them 
yet."  There  was  even  one  command  that  because  of 
his  stern  order,  "  Hold  this  at  all  hazards/'  clung  to 
the  crest  of  that  wooded  ravine  (named  "  The 
Hornets'  Nest/'  because  of  the  stings  innumerable  re 
ceived  there),  fought  until  everything  was  gone  but 
honor,  and  then  and  not  until  then  did  gallant  Prentiss, 
hemmed  on  every  side,  surrender  his  surviving  two 
thousand  to  an  overwelming  force. 

It  was  almost  at  the  same  instant  that  another  gallant 
officer,  W.  H.  Wallace,  heading  Smith's  old  division, 
met  his  mortal  wound.  It  was  here  in  front  of  our 
weakest  division  in  point  of  battle  craft,  that  Albert 
Sidney  Johnston  felt  it  his  duty  to  personally  lead  a 
half  broken  brigade  in  final  assault,  and  there  receive 
through  the  boot  leg  a  bullet  that  tore  the  artery,  a 
scratch  he  disdained  to  notice  at  the  moment,  but  from 

199 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

which  the  heroic  soldier  bled  to  death  before  any  one 
about  him  realized  that  he  was  even  hit. 

It  was  just  at  half  past  two  of  this  tremendous  day 
that  the  word  began  to  whisper  along  the  Southern  line 
that  the  lion-hearted  leader  was  no  more.  It  stayed 
for  an  hour  the  battle.  It  gave  Grant  and  his  chief 
of  artillery  time  to  align  half  a  score  of  batteries  along 
the  ridge  south  of  Pittsburg  Landing.  It  gave  a  breath 
ing  spell  to  the  hard-pressed  men  of  Smith  and  Hurl- 
but,  but  away  to  the  centre  and  right,  to  the  north 
and  northwest,  the  crashing  fray  went  steadily  on, 
McClernand  and  Sherman  fighting  hard  and  falling 
slowly,  doggedly,  back  from  ridge  to  ridge — Sherman 
looking  ever  to  his  imperilled  right  and  for  the  coming 
of  Lew  Wallace,  unaccountably  detained. 

We  know  the  story  of  that  momentous  mischance. 
Grant  had  left  his  breakfast  table,  and  the  as  yet  un 
seen  Buell  at  Savannah,  had  ordered  Nelson  to  march 
at  once  to  a  point  opposite  Pittsburg  Landing,  and  left 
word  for  Buell  to  hurry  forward  his  foremost  divisions 
due  that  very  day,  had  then  boarded  his  little  steam 
boat  and  forced  a  way  up  stream  through  the  multitude 
of  river  craft,  had  stopped  a  few  moments  at  Crumps 
to  bid  Lew  Wallace  put  his  whole  division  in  readiness 
to  act,  and  then  had  steamed  on  again  to  be  greeted  by 
the  sight  of  hundreds  of  skulkers  lining  the  river  bank 
for  half  a  mile — a  sight  to  stir  most  soldiers  into  flights 
of  fury  and  blasphemy,  but  that  could  not  provoke  him 
to  even  mild  indulgence :  the  nearest  he  came  to  it  was 
to  refer  to  one  hopelessly  terrified  group  as  "  those 
poor  devils/'  Once  ashore,  the  first  thing  was  to  see 
that  the  ammunition  train  was  in  readiness  to  supply 
the  soldiery  at  the  fighting  front.  Then,  mounting,  he 
rode  forward  through  the  dreary  woods,  through  for 
lorn  and  dejected  throngs  of  stragglers,  skulkers  and 
slightly  wounded — even  in  the  moment  of  thrilling  vic 
tory  the  rear  of  a  fighting  line  is  a  depressing  sight — 

200 


SHILOH— THE  ONE  SURPRISE 

and  emerged  after  this  nerve-racking  plunge,  placid, 
serene,  confident.  The  rebound  must  come,  he  argued, 
when  the  enemy  can  drive  no  further,  and  the  enemy 
at  the  rate  he  had  been  losing  would  be  in  no  shape  to 
resist  once  he  got  them  going  the  other  way,  and  of 
going  never  a  doubt  had  he.  All  day  long  until  near 
sundown  the  battle  raged  here,  there  and  everywhere, 
with  alternations  of  rest  and,  in  places,  of  reformation, 
with  the  gradual  result  that  the  battle  line  was  squeezed 
into  a  semi-circle,  a  mile  or  so  back  from  the  camps 
where  Prentiss  and  Sherman  had  uneasily  passed  the 
previous  night.  But  now  the  South  had  fought  to  a 
breathless  finish.  Its  men  could  do  no  more.  They 
were  swept,  too,  on  their  right  flank  by  the  guns 
aligned  at  Webster's  ridge.  They  had  done  their  best, 
but  were  halted  short  of  the  goal  posts.  The  Army  of 
the  Tennessee  now  held,  and  with  the  morning  would 
be  ready  to  hit. 

And  then  with  night  Nelson,  of  the  Ohio,  was  cross 
ing  by  boat,  and  Crittenden  was  close  behind,  and 
McCook,  with  his  finely  disciplined  division,  with  all  the 
precision  of  the  drill  ground,  was  just  marching  up 
from  Savannah.  Lew  Wallace,  too,  soon  after  dark, 
was  in  line  at  last  on  the  right  flank,  and  Grant,  under 
neath  the  calm  exterior,  was  simply  burning  with  eager 
ness  for  morning  to  come.  Then  though  he  might 
not  recover  guns  and  prisoners  already  spirited  away  to 
the  Southern  rear,  he  meant  to  recover  every  inch  of 
the  ground  and  to  drive  in  utter  flight  the  victors  of  the 
Sunday  battle,  leaving  a  bloody  trail  behind  them. 

That  night  he  sought  a  few  hours'  sleep  at  the 
Landing,  but  the  moans  and  suffering  of  the  wounded 
were  too  much  for  him.  He  groped  his  way  out  of 
hearing  and  lay  in  a  poncho  and  blanket  under  a  spread 
ing  tree.  That  night  the  guns  of  the  Tyler  and  Lexing 
ton  sent  huge  shells  screeching  every  few  minutes  up 
the  peopled  ravine  which  encircled  the  Union  left,  scat- 

201 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

tering  death  among  the  would-be  sleepers  of  the  wearied 
Southern  host.  Their  dead  and  wounded  fully  equalled, 
if  not  exceeded,  those  of  the  Union  force,  and  in  point 
of  generals  the  cost  to  them  had  been  as  ten  to  the 
Union  one.  That  night  it  rained  in  torrents,  but  at  last 
the  morning  came  and  with  it  the  initiative.  The  first 
gun  bellowed  from  the  Union  side  and  with  it  Grant 
and  his  drenched,  shivering  but  determined  men,  swept 
forward  along  the  battle  lines  of  the  night  before — Lew 
Wallace  and  Sherman  to  the  west  and  northwest, 
McClernand  toward  the  centre,  and  Nelson  and  Crit- 
tenden  of  the  Ohio,  facing  southward,  and  backed  by 
the  regular  batteries  which  Mendenhall  and  Terrell  had 
managed  in  spite  of  mud  to  bring  up  with  their  divisions. 
Fan-like  these  forces  spread  outward  from  the  com 
mon  centre  where  they  lay  cramped  throughout  the 
night,  and  long  before  noonday,  in  spite  of  hard  fight 
ing  everywhere,  especially  where  Sherman's  men  a 
second  time  battled  over  the  fields  of  Shiloh  Church, 
the  Southern  lines  were  splitting  apart  and  being  hurled 
backward  through  the  very  ravines  and  thickets  they 
had  carried  with  yells  of  triumph  but  the  day  before. 

Buell,  too,  had  reached  the  field,  and  to  him,  at 
Sherman's  station,  appeared  Grant,  covered  with  mud 
and  mire,  sore  from  injuries  received  when  his  horse 
stumbled  over  a  fallen  timber  the  previous  day,  and 
stiffened  from  a  long  night  in  the  pouring  rain.  Little 
like  a  victor  looked  Grant,  at  the  moment.  Little 
like  victory  looked  the  field,  yet  there  was  the  serene 
confidence  in  Grant's  manner  which  told  of  both,  and, 
just  twenty-four  hours  after  Sidney  Johnston  breathed 
his  last — just  before  three  o'clock  on  this  second  day  of 
bloody  Shiloh — the  Southern  second  in  command,  now 
become  chief  on  the  field,  gave  the  order  which  ever 
since  early  dawn  he  knew  to  be  inevitable,  and,  still 
valiantly  fronting  the  fierce  attack  of  the  Union  lines, 
Beauregard  slowly  withdrew  his  bleeding  divisions 

202 


SHILOH— THE  ONE  SURPRISE 

from  the  field  of  their  fruitless  effort.  Except  for 
half  a  dozen  guns  and  a  thousand  prisoners,  the  net  re 
sult  of  the  tremendous  essay,  the  Army  of  the  South 
had  gained  nothing  at  Shiloh,  and  what  were  these 
when  weighed  in  the  balance  with  the  gallant  spirit 
lost  to  the  Southern  cause  forever? 

Sundown  of  April  7th  proclaimed  Grant  a  second 
time  victor  in  pitched  battle,  and  there  were  really  two 
days  or  more  in  which  he  was  permitted  to  so  regard 
himself,  and  to  accept  the  congratulations  of  Sherman 
and  McPherson.  It  is  even  recorded  of  him  that  he 
was  human  enough  to  indulge  in  a  brief  moment  of 
triumph  on  meeting  in  the  person  of  Major  Pitzman, 
of  St.  Louis,  the  nephew  of  the  successful  competitor 
for  the  county  surveyorship  several  years  before. 
Salomon,  the  local  favorite  and  politician,  easily  won 
that  contest,  and  was  now  serving  somewhere  in  the 
southwest  with  the  rank  of  colonel.  "  Hello,  Pitzman," 
cried  the  senior  major-general  with  a  shrug  of  the 
shoulders  that  displayed  the  double  stars,  "  you  see  I've 
beaten  Salomon  after  all !  " 

But  then  came  Halleck,  the  newspapers,  new  def 
amation,  detraction  and  presently  new  humiliation. 
For  the  second  time  the  hardest  and  most  determined 
fighter  of  all  our  generals,  east  or  west,  was  made  to 
suffer  at  the  hands  of  his  superiors,  the  press,  and  even 
the  people  whom  he  had  so  loyally  and  gallantly  served. 


CHAPTER  XX 
THE  SORROW  AFTER  SHILOH 

THERE  was  no  pursuit  of  Beauregard.  The  rains 
and  hails  of  the  clouded  heavens  deluged  his  wearied 
men  and  drenched  and  chilled  his  helpless  wounded, 
dragging  back  to  Corinth  over  those  wretched  roads. 
A  few  cavalry  went  out  and  reported  the  foe  as  falling 
back.  Then  Sherman  was  sent  to  keep  in  touch,  was 
fiercely  rebuked  by  Forrest's  horsemen,  and  wisely, 
perhaps,  refrained  from  further  venture.  Both  armies 
had  vast  repairs  to  make  before  either  would  be  fit  for 
further  fight,  though  the  Army  of  the  Ohio,  it  might 
be  hazarded,  could  have  been  entrusted  at  once  with 
the  duty  of  bayonetting  Beauregard  out  of  Corinth. 
Buell  and  his  five  fine  divisions  (for  Wood  and  Thomas 
joined  him  by  the  8th)  would  probably  have  been  too 
many  for  what  Beauregard  had  left. 

But  Halleck  was  coming  at  once  to  take  command  in 
person.  He  had  expected  to  find  two  armies,  Grant's 
and  Buell's,  fine,  fit  and  ready  for  action.  He  found 
Grant's  sorely  battered  and  depleted,  but  no  more  so 
than  was  Beauregard's,  in  spite  of  Buell's  slur.  Buell 
reported  that  when  he  reached  Pittsburg  Landing  Grant 
was  whipped,  and  that  there  were  barely  five  thousand 
combatants  left  to  him.  In  fact  Buell  always  believed 
that  he,  not  Grant,  restored  the  battle. 

Now  Halleck  came  to  refit  and  reorganize.  Grant's 
idea  would  have  been  to  bury  the  dead  and  to  leave 
the  sick  and  wounded  to  the  care  of  the  Sanitary  Com 
mission.  Grant  would  have  shaken  himself  loose  from 
the  leash,  gathered  up  all  the  sound  men  on  the  southwest 
bank  and  started  forthwith  on  the  heels  of  Beauregard. 
Grant  probably  would  and  could  have  had  Corinth  be- 

204 


THE  SORROW  AFTER  SHILOH 

fore  April  was  ten  days  older,  but  Halleck  would  have 
nothing  further  done  until  his  coming,  and  that  coming 
came  not  until  April  I  ith,  four  days  after  the  last  shot 
at  Shiloh.  By  this  time  Beauregard  was  once  again 
within  the  works  about  Corinth,  and  wiring  for  re 
inforcements.  By  this  time,  too,  Halleck  was  again 
listening  to  calumny  illimitable  at  the  expense  of  Grant, 
and  the  columns  of  the  Northern  press  overflowed 
with  it. 

All  the  skulkers,  all  the  human  rabbits  who  had 
fled  at  the  first  shot,  all  the  envious,  all  the  self-seeking 
had  their  tales  to  tell  of  luxurious  dawdling  and  drink 
ing  at  the  rear  while  his  men  shivered  at  the  far  front, 
of  neglect  of  every  precaution  (wherein  there  was  a 
vestige  of  truth),  of  tender  handling  of  "  rebel  sympa 
thizers,"  of  returning  to  their  cruel  masters  of  weeping 
runaway  slaves  who  had  taken  refuge  in  his  camps, 
of  favoritism  toward  Sherman,  Smith  and  fellow  West 
Pointers,  and  ostracism  of  gallant  and  deserving  volun 
teers,  notably  from  Illinois.  One  could  readily  find  the 
source  of  most  of  these,  and  all  of  these  Grant  heard, 
and  some  of  this  he  read,  always  in  submissive  silence, 
thinking  sadly  of  the  effect  produced  at  home — of  the 
sorrow,  distress  and  indignation  in  the  loved  faces  about 
that  distant  fireside. 

These  were  hard  times  for  hard-headed  old  Jesse, 
who,  from  expressing  himself  openly  and  sometimes 
contemptuously  as  to  the  usefulness  of  his  first-born 
for  two  or  three  years  before  the  war,  had  taken  to 
the  opposite  extreme,  and  until  sternly  checked  by  the 
son,  had  himself  been  fighting  doughty  battles  in  print. 
These  were  mournful  days  for  Julia  Dent,  gathering 
her  brood  about  her  knees  and  bidding  them  pay  no 
heed  to  the  taunts  and  jeers  of  playmates,  taught  by 
envious  elders  to  stab  and  wound  the  childish  breasts. 
These  were  days  of  temporary  triumph  to  certain  sub 
ordinates,  secretly  hostile — men  who  dared  now  to 

205 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

submit  their  reports  of  Shiloh  direct  to  Halleck,  in 
stead  of,  as  military  usage  and  regulation  required, 
direct  to  Grant ;  and  Halleck,  so  far  from  rebuking,  re 
ceived,  tacitly  encouraged,  and  presently,  with  com 
ments  of  his  own,  forwarded  to  the  War  Department — 
all  to  the  end  that  it  was  Halleck's,  not  Grant's,  report 
of  the  great  battle  that  was  filed  at  Washington.  The 
commander  on  the  spot,  flouted  by  some  of  his  juniors, 
and  slighted  by  his  one  senior,  being  thus  deprived  of 
much  of  the  needed  material,  declined  ever  to  submit 
a  report.  Halleck  had  taken  this  duty,  as  indeed  he  took 
the  command,  off  his  subordinate's  hands.  Over  these 
days  of  new  sorrows,  slights  and  wrongs,  we  may  better 
draw  the  veil.  Of  earthly  witnesses  to  his  sorrow — told 
only  in  his  letters  to  his  wife  and  to  Elihu  Washburne, 
and  barely  alluded  to  in  a  talk  with  Sherman — even 
among  his  staff  there  seemed  to  have  been  but  one  or 
two.  These  were  matters  on  which  he  felt  too  deeply 
to  trust  himself  to  speak.  He  knew  by  this  time  that 
even  in  far-away  Washington  there  were  men  who,  self- 
seeking  and  resentful  of  his  growing  influence,  had  done 
their  worst  to  poison  the  minds  of  both  Lincoln  and 
Stanton  against  him.  He  did  not  know — what  infinite 
cheer  it  would  have  brought  him — that  when  Stanton 
sent  to  the  President  the  paper  setting  forth  the  story 
of  Grant's  intoxication,  and  urging  his  removal,  the 
paper  came  promptly  back  endorsed :  "  I  cannot  spare 
this  man — he  fights." 

However,  let  us  turn  and  see  how  Halleck  took  up 
the  reins  snatched  from  the  hands  of  the  farmer- 
soldier,  and  what  he  did  in  the  brief  time  in  which  his 
headquarters  were  actually  in  the  field.  The  critic 
and  analyst  of  many  another  man's  campaign  had  now 
come  to  conduct  one  of  his  own. 

Less  than  twenty  miles  away  from  the  thronging 
camps  where  by  the  ist  of  May  Halleck  had  gathered 
one  hundred  thousand  men,  crouching  behind  well- 

206 


THE  SORROW  AFTER  SHILOH 

planned  fortifications  lay  the  beaten  army  of  Beaure- 
gard.  With  Halleck  were  Grant,  Buell,  Pope,  Rose- 
crans,  Sherman,  Thomas  and  a  score  of  division  and 
brigade  commanders  now  famous  in  the  West — Pope 
fresh  from  his  triumph  at  Island  No.  10,  which  Halleck 
had  officially  proclaimed  a  splendid  achievement,  "  ex 
ceeding  in  boldness  and  brilliancy  all  other  operations 
of  the  war/'  a  something  "  memorable  in  military 
history  and  sure  to  be  admired  by  future  generations." 
Yet  historians  and  future  generations,  so  far,  seem  to 
mention  it  but  seldom  in  comparison  with  Donelson. 
But  Pope  was  ever  a  pet  of  Halleck,  a  man  much  of  his 
own  kidney,  except  that  Pope  was  an  impetuous,  though 
later  a  luckless,  fighter,  while  Halleck  never  fought  at 
all.  Just  as  after  Donelson  Halleck  sought  to  divert 
attention  from  Grant  to  Smith — the  far  more  chivalric 
figure — so  now  he  sought  to  exalt  Pope  and  to  "  shelve  " 
Grant.  Wisely,  probably,  he  broke  up  the  existing  bar 
rier  and  merged  the  armies  of  the  Ohio  and  the  Ten 
nessee,  shifting  divisions  from  one  to  the  other,  then 
reorganizing  the  mass  into  three  grand  divisions,  right, 
left  and  centre.  The  right  he  placed  under  George  H. 
Thomas,  senior  major-general  of  the  Army  of  the  Ohio. 
The  centre  he  gave  to  Buell  himself ;  the  left,  and  as 
luck  would  have  it,  the  one  nearest  to  Corinth  when 
finally  they  closed  in,  he  gave  to  Pope.  To  Grant  was 
assigned  no  command  whatever.  Designated  in  orders 
as  "  second  in  command,"  he  was  destined  for  the  time 
to  occupy  a  position,  as  pointed  out  by  Colonel  Church, 
about  as  influential  and  distinguished  as  that  of  Vice- 
President,  or,  as  his  old  comrades  of  the  Tennessee 
would  have  it,  of  a  fifth  wheel  to  a  farm  wagon. 

And  with  his  great  army  thus  reorganized,  refitted 
and  again  ready  for  the  field,  the  man  of  whom  so  very 
much  was  expected,  and  whom  the  soldiers  proceeded 
to  dub  "  Old  Brains,"  because  of  supposed  yet  unproved 
superiority  to  their  immediate  leaders,  now  proceeded 

207 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

to  the  reduction  of  Corinth  and  the  crushing  of  Beaure- 
gard,  whose  force  on  paper  approximated  his  own,  but 
in  fact  was  not  much  more  than  half.  Away  across 
the  Alleghenies  and  down  on  the  peninsula  between  the 
York  and  James,  and  just  about  this  time,  a  single  divi 
sion  of  Southern  troops  led  by  that  genial  bonvivant  and 
famous  dinner  giver  of  the  old  Army,  "  Prince  John  " 
Magruder,  had  been  sufficient  to  stop  George  B. 
McClellan,  backed  by  the  entire  Army  of  the  Potomac. 
If  only  their  beloved  and  admired  "  Little  Mac"  could 
have  been  induced  to  let  them  go,  they  could  have 
swept  past  Yorktown  and  well  nigh  swallowed  Magru 
der.  But  McClellan  was  an  Engineer,  steeped  in  siege 
craft,  and,  to  the  hilarious  glee  of  all  Richmond,  there 
he  sat  him  down  before  Magruder,  sent  for  batteries, 
guns  and  ponderous  mortars,  and  lost  a  precious  month. 
Almost  in  like  manner,  here  at  the  far  west,  "  Old 
Brains,"  with  the  slow,  stealthy  movement  of  some 
huge  boa  charming  a  fluttering  pigeon,  began  that  solemn 
and  cautious  advance  upon  the  doomed  strategic  centre 
of  northeast  Mississippi.  Each  day  the  mighty  army 
made  a  mile  or  so ;  each  night  it  was  made  sure  of  it  by 
heavy  intrenchments,  until  from  Shiloh  Church  the 
face  of  the  earth  southwestward  was  one  vast  zigzag 
of  corrugations;  until  April  had  blossomed  into  May, 
and  May  had  seen  two  changes  of  its  moon,  and  then 
at  last,  twenty  miles  in  twenty  days,  the  great  army 
coiled  down  in  front  of  the  entrenchments  of  Beaure- 
gard  along  the  heights  overlooking  Philips  Creek,  and 
blinked  its  eyes  at  the  distant  chimneys  of  Corinth,  and 
wondered  what  would  come  next.  "If  it  took  us  a 
month  with  no  opposition  to  make  a  day's  march,"  asked 
a  Tennessee  man  of  Tecumseh  Sherman,  furiously 
chewing  and  spitting  over  a  dry  cigar,  "  how  long's  it 
going  to  take  us  to  get  in  yonder,  if  they  show  fight?  " 
All  the  same  the  constrictor  had  at  last  its  grip  on 
Corinth. 

208 


THE  SORROW  AFTER  SHILOH 

And  all  this  time,  chafing  inwardly,  but  silent  and 
subordinate,  Grant  had  followed  the  movements  of  his 
massive  chief,  neglected  and  ignored  except  by  a  certain 
few  of  his  former  comrades  of  the  Tennessee,  and  ever 
attended,  faithfully  and  loyally  by  Rawlins  and  Rowley. 
Other  staff  officers  he  had,  but  while  every  day  was 
adding  to  the  usefulness  of  Rawlins  and  the  loyal  energy 
of  Rowley,  it  seems  that  two  or  three  of  the  original 
staff  might  better  have  been  left  at  home.  There  was 
something  almost  intolerable  in  existing  conditions,  and 
concerning  them  Grant  unbosomed  himself  to  his  now 
devoted  friend  and  comrade,  the  nervous,  irascible,  but 
most  loyal  Sherman.  Here  he  was,  by  presidential 
order,  the  actual  commander  of  the  District  of  the 
Tennessee,  yet,  at  the  beck  of  the  general  commanding 
the  Military  Division  of  the  Mississippi,  required  to  fol 
low  meekly  in  his  train  without  command,  without 
escort,  without  functions  of  any  kind.  Thrice  after 
Donelson  he  had  asked  to  be  relieved  from  service 
under  Halleck,  and  Halleck  had  temporized  and 
placated.  Now  again  he  had  time  to  read  the  volume 
of  marked  copies  or  clippings  from  the  Northern  press, 
and  realized  how  numerous  and  active  were  his  enemies, 
how  few  and  passive  seemed  his  friends,  for,  as  he  him 
self  would  not  deign  to  enter  into  newspaper  con 
troversy,  they  had  followed  suit.  He  therefore  turned 
again  to  Sherman,  who  was  very  busy  beating  the  bush 
at  the  far  right  flank,  and  reaching  out  for  the  Mobile 
and  Ohio  Railway.  Beginning  those  thirty  days  as  a 
division  commander  under  the  orders  of  his  classmate 
Thomas,  Sherman  had  developed  more  pent-up,  high 
pressure  energy  than  half  a  dozen  other  division  com 
manders  combined,  and  yet  Sherman  found  time  to 
plead  with  his  now  deposed  superior  and  to  urge  him 
to  bear  and  forbear  a  little  longer  until  the  country 
could  hear  the  truth  and  Halleck  listen  to  reason.  Sher 
man,  having  known  Halleck  in  San  Francisco  days,  had 
14  209 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

higher  hopes  of  him  than  had  Grant,  who  now  claimed 
that  self-respect  demanded  that  he  quit  the  service,  so 
far  as  the  jurisdiction  of  Halleck  was  concerned.  But 
Sherman  prevailed,  and  Grant,  luckily  for  the  cause 
and  the  country,  agreed  to  bide  his  time. 

Corinth  fell  on  the  3Oth,  but  Beauregard  and  his 
sixty  thousand  had  slipped  serenely  out  of  the  coils. 
Pope,  being  southernmost,  followed  swift  and  smote 
hard  at  the  rearmost.  Halleck  stayed  at  captured 
Corinth  and  wired  as  to  his  captures,  which  consisted 
of  abandoned  earthworks,  an  empty  town,  but,  of  course, 
a  great  strategic  position.  So  far  as  men  and  munitions 
of  war  were  concerned,  he  had  not  taken  a  tenth  part 
of  what  Grant  garnered  at  Donelson.  Still,  something 
might  yet  be  done  further  south,  whither  Pope  was  pur 
suing  and  where  the  woods  for  miles  were  reported  by 
division  commanders  as  full  of  stragglers  from  the 
enemy,  half  starved  and  wholly  ready  to  surrender. 
"  Not  less  than  ten  thousand  are  thus  scattered  about 
who  will  come  in  within  a  day  or  two,"  wired  Pope  to 
his  chief,  whereupon  that  strategist  and  statistician 
telegraphed  to  an  exultant  and  rejoiceful  war  secre 
tary  at  Washington :  "  General  Pope  is  thirty  miles 
south  of  Corinth,  pushing  the  enemy  hard.  He  already 
reports  ten  thousand  prisoners  and  deserters  from  the 
enemy,  and  fifteen  thousand  stand  of  arms  captured," 
and  great  was  the  sensation  throughout  the  North,  and 
greater  still  the  depth  of  disappointment  and  disgust 
when  it  turned  out  to  be,  to  put  it  mildly,  premature. 

And  thus  did  Halleck  capture  Corinth  and  report 
the  results.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  Grant  would  have 
done  both  otherwise. 


CHAPTER  XXI 
GRANT  AND  RAWLINS 

THE  summer  of  '62  was  ushered  in  and  from  cast- 
to  west  Union  loving  people  were  reading  explanations 
and  reaping  disappointment.  McClellan  made  slow 
progress  on  the  Peninsula.  Halleck  had  divided  his 
forces  and  sent  them  hither  and  yon.  Six  weeks  after 
Corinth  the  War  Department  summoned  to  Washing 
ton  the  leader  of  the  left  wing  at  Corinth,  and  sent  John 
Pope  to  command  the  left-over  and  scattered  corps 
McClellan  had  not  succeeded  in  taking  to  the  Peninsula. 
One  month  later  still  it  sent  for  Halleck  and  placed  him 
chief  in  command  of  all  the  armies  in  the  field,  with  his 
headquarters  at  Washington.  Pope,  hastening  forth, 
had  established  his,  as  he  announced,  in  saddle.  Thus 
two  men  from  the  West  had  come  to  take  high  com 
mand  in  the  East,  and  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  devoted 
to  its  own  commanders,  could  hardly  be  expected  to 
effusively  welcome  the  newcomers. 

Pope's  first  essay  was  a  spirited  address  to  his  new 
army,  made  up  in  part  at  least  of  men  that  had  served 
in  and  with  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  and  were  proud 
of  it.  Pope  shared  a  not  uncommon  delusion  that  about 
the  only  fighting  yet  done  was  in  the  West,  and  in  his 
address  telling  the  Eastern  armies  that  he  came  from 
where  they  were  accustomed  to  seeing  only  the  backs 
of  the  enemy,  something  the  Easterners  had  yet  to  ex 
perience,  and  bidding  them  drop  words  and  methods 
hitherto  in  vogue  and  to  learn  the  language  and  ways  of 
the  men  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  he  succeeded  only  in 
rousing  the  antagonism  of  most  of  the  Union  Army  then 
in  Virginia.  Then  he  set  forth  to  hammer  Jackson  and 
Longstreet,  and  by  the  end  of  August  his  entire  Army 

211 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

was  flung  back  to  the  Potomac,  while  a  victorious  enemy 
was  marching  for  the  heart  of  Maryland.  It  took  less 
than  ten  weeks  to  end  Pope's  career  as  a  field  general. 
He  had  been  appointed  brigadier  in  the  regular  army 
in  mid  July,  thereby  making  him  a  permanency  in  the 
service,  but  a  command  was  found  for  him  in  the  far 
northwest  where  he  had  no  more  fighting  to  do,  and 
with  McDowell,  also  deposed  and  relieved,  he  found 
leisure  to  study  and  criticise  the  campaigns  of  their 
brethren  at  the  front,  something  in  which  each  excelled. 
Few  better  exponents  of  the  theory  and  art  of  war 
were  ever  found  in  these  United  States  than  Halleck, 
McClellan,  Pope  and  McDowell,  but  for  some  strange 
reason  their  methods  proved  inoperative  with  American 
troops  against  troops  even  more  aggressively  American, 
and  over  American  topography  in  the  sovereign  State 
of  Virginia.  There  the  whirlwind  tactics  of  Stonewall 
Jackson  swept  our  legions  from  the  field,  and  there  com 
mander  after  commander  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac 
found  the  road  to  Richmond  blocked  and  impassable, 
until  at  last  "  the  stone  the  builders  rejected  "  came 
rough  quarried  from  the  distant  West,  and  these  and 
others  who  had  signally  failed,  yet  could  concede  noth 
ing  but  luck  to  him  who  had  "  in  spite  of  foes  "  suc 
ceeded,  stood  at  last  as  silent  spectators  of  the  closing 
campaign,  the  final  furling  of  the  colors  of  the  hard 
fighting,  hard  dying  Confederacy,  as  the  sword  of  Lee, 
the  worshipped  leader,  lay  at  the  mercy  of  the  home 
spun  and  indomitable  Grant. 

But  meanwhile  other  campaigns  had  to  be  planned 
and  fought,  other  foemen  had  to  be  overthrown,  but 
when  Henry  W.  Halleck  was  summoned  from  the  West 
to  Washington — and  well  did  President  Lincoln  under 
stand  this — Ulysses  Grant  stepped  at  once  from  second 
to  supreme  command  in  the  Valley  of  the  Mississippi, 
and  it  would  seem  as  though  the  great  President  who 
was  so  patient  in  council,  so  painstaking  in  argument, 

212 


GRANT  AND  RAWLINS 

and  so  set  in  mind  when  once  his  mind  was  made,  had 
determined  that  in  spite  of  every  story  they  could  bring 
to  him,  the  best  leader  and  fighter  of  them  all  was  the 
stoop-shouldered,  silent  soldier  from  northwestern 
Illinois.  And  so  again  in  the  summer  of  '62,  called 
from  his  headquarters  at  Memphis,  Grant  rode  the  lines 
at  the  far  front,  puffing  almost  continually  at  a  long 
black  cigar,  seeing  everything  there  was  to  be  seen  and 
saying  next  to  nothing  until  about  the  evening  camp  fire, 
when  he  sat  in  conference  with  Rawlins  and  felt  that  he 
could  open  his  lips  awhile  without  fear  of  misquotation. 

By  mid-summer  of  '62  the  great  army  with  which 
Halleck  had  crawled  on  Corinth  had  been  broken  up 
and  scattered,  and  Buell,  with  most  of  his  old  division 
chiefs  in  the  Army  of  the  Ohio,  was  already  in  eastern 
Tennessee,  looking  after  the  menacing  force  under 
Bragg.  In  the  West  Grant  found  himself  with  much 
of  the  old  Army  of  the  Tennessee.  Among  his  division 
commanders,  fortunately  for  him,  was  his  stanch  ally 
and  subordinate,  Sherman.  Among  them,  too,  were 
others,  like  Rosecrans  and  C.  S.  Hamilton,  who  had 
risen  rapidly  from  civil  pursuits  which  had  occupied 
their  time  and  thoughts  since  the  brief  years  of  service 
after  graduation,  and  both  Rosecrans  and  Hamilton, 
though  both  men  of  brains  and  ability,  had  characteristics 
that  made  them  "  difficult "  as  subordinates.  Hamilton 
was  a  classmate,  a  fellow  infantryman  in  the  Mexican 
war,  yet  not  one  of  Grant's  intimates.  Two  of  the 
division  commanders,  prominent  at  Shiloh  and  closely 
attached  to  Grant's  fortunes  or  misfortunes  from  the 
start,  were  Hurlbut  and  McClernand. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  in  the  quartette  of  Illinois' 
original  brigadiers,  Grant  was  named  foremost.  Pren- 
tiss,  the  third  in  rank,  quit  his  command,  as  we  have 
seen,  almost  at  the  outset,  rather  than  serve  under  the 
orders  of  Grant — an  error  he  probably  long  regretted  and 
surely  atoned  for  at  Shiloh.  Hurlbut  and  McClernand 

213 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

were  from  the  start  envious  of  Grant,  and  the  fact  that 
he  was  a  West  Pointer,  of  long  service  in  the  army,  and 
of  distinguished  record  as  a  fighter  in  the  Mexican  war, 
seemed  to  weigh  with  them  not  at  all.  That  each  had 
been  of  more  consequence  in  civil  life  than  the  humble 
clerk  at  Galena  was  all  that  either  Hurlbut  or  McCler- 
nand  seemed  able  to  consider,  and  it  resulted  that  from 
the  former  only  half-hearted  and  perfunctory  service 
could  be  expected,  while,  as  it  soon  transpired,  from  the 
latter  there  emanated  many  of  the  reports  to  Grant's 
discredit.  Before  long,  therefore,  as  will  be  shown,  the 
embers  of  envy  and  dislike  were  fanned  to  the  flame  of 
downright  defiance. 

With  such  elements  to  contend  with  among  his  gen 
erals  it  was  more  than  essential  that  the  commander 
should  be  surrounded  by  a  trustworthy  and  efficient 
staff,  but  here  as  hereafter,  it  seemed  that  Grant  lacked 
the  gift  of  estimating  men  at  their  true  worth.  Ab 
solutely  loyal,  straightforward  and  simple  himself,  he 
doubtless  expected  the  same  traits  in  others,  and  appears 
to  have  been  quite  at  a  loss  what  to  do  when  the  men  of 
his  choice  proved  unreliable.  Grant  hated  to  give  up 
in  anything — even  his  faith  in  a  friend. 

By  the  time  luka  and  Corinth  had  been  fought  and 
the  winter  wore  on,  over  and  over  again  the  general 
had  found  it  necessary  to  suppress  some  of  his  sub 
ordinates,  and  to  rid  himself  of  at  least  one  who  quar 
relled  so  much  with  others  that  for  a  time  they  seemed 
to  lose  sight  of  the  supreme  importance  of  concentrating 
every  energy  on  the  enemy.  By  this  time,  too,  Grant's 
most  loyal  adherents  had  determined  that  it  was  also 
necessary  to  rid  him  of  certain  of  his  staff,  whose  in 
fluence  both  with  him  and  with  the  army  was  the  reverse 
of  good. 

But  here  lay  the  difficulty.  That  very  loyalty  which 
Grant  ever  displayed  toward  superiors  in  rank  or  sta 
tion,  he  extended  to  those  whom  he  had  called  to  his 

214 


GRANT  AND  RAWLINS 

side.  Once  having  given  his  faith  to  man  or  woman, 
there  it  clung.  Once  having  chosen  a  man  for  his  mili 
tary  family,  he  could  see  no  evil  in  and  would  hear  no 
ill  of  him.  Later  still  in  his  career  this  blindness  and 
deafness  or  dullness  as  to  the  moral  traits  of  those 
about  him — this  disbelief  of  any  suggestion  detrimental 
to  a  man  of  his  choice — led  to  consequences  infinitely 
more  serious  than  those  which  threatened  him  in  the 
fall  of  '62. 

But  these  were  sufficiently  serious  to  be  the  cause  of 
grave  apprehension  to  the  men  who  best  loved  and 
served  him.  McPherson,  his  brainy,  brilliant  engineer, 
at  Grant's  own  recommendation  had  been  made  a  briga 
dier  in  the  summer,  and  this  promotion  had  been  fol 
lowed  in  October  by  another  which  made  him  major- 
general  commanding  a  division  of  volunteers — still,  of 
course,  under  Grant.  But  this  took  him  out  of  the  staff, 
where  in  many  ways  Rawlins  had  learned  to  lean  upon 
him.  Chief  of  that  staff  was  Rawlins,  the  big  Galena 
lawyer,  whom  Grant  had  had  the  consummate  good 
fortune  to  select  in  '61,  and  Rawlins  deserved  and  has 
had  biographers  of  his  own. 

A  charcoal  burner  for  some  years  of  his  life,  earning 
money  enough  to  sit  for  two  terms  in  the  Rock  River 
Seminary  and  then  to  study  law,  Rawlins  had  pushed 
into  politics,  had  been  a  Douglas  Democrat  in  1860, 
but  became  the  most  fervent  of  Unionists  when  the  war 
broke  out  in  '61.  He  had  prospered  modestly,  had  mar 
ried,  and  might  have  been  earlier  in  the  field  and  lost  to 
Grant,  but  for  the  illness  and  death  of  his  wife.  When 
he  joined  his  quiet-mannered  general  at  Cairo  he  knew 
nothing  of  military  matters,  but  much  of  men.  His 
recent  bereavement,  added  to  austere  views  of  his  own, 
kept  him  aloof  from  camp  festivities  of  any  kind.  He 
learned  all  he  could  of  army  methods,  of  papers,  reports, 
returns,  etc.,  from  Grant,  and  soon  mastered  all  mere 
matters  of  routine.  Then  he  began  taking  more  active 

215 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

part  in  the  details  and  doings  about  him.  He  was 
"  bold,  virile  and  patriotic,"  as  General  James  H.  Wilson 
described  him,  and  so  imbued  with  a  sense  of  the  im 
mensity  of  the  duties  before  them  all,  and  the  impor 
tance  of  bending  every  energy  to  the  maintenance  of 
the  Union,  that  he  could  tolerate  no  laggard  and  brook 
no  laxity. 

Knowing  Grant  thoroughly  and  well,  delighting  in 
his  strength  and  dreading  his  main  weakness,  Rawlins 
stood  by  and  clung  to  and  watched  over  his  commander 
with  a  fidelity  and  a  vigilance  which  warded  off  many  an 
insidious  enemy,  and  which  resulted,  as  Grant  said  in 
'63,  in  making  Rawlins  "  more  nearly  indispensable  to 
me  than  anybody  else."  When  it  is  remembered  that 
by  '63  Grant  had  assembled  about  him  a  staff  really 
great  in  their  personal  and  professional  traits,  and  all 
this  time,  too,  Sherman  and  McPherson  were  in  close 
touch  and  communion  with  him,  it  shows  that  Rawlins 
was  the  bom  manager  Grant  believed  him.  There,  at 
least  he  made  no  mistake  as  to  his  man.  A  year  later  in 
the  winter  of  '63  and  4,  Grant  wrote  to  Sherman  the 
famous  letter  saying :  "  To  you  and  to  McPherson  " 
his  gratitude  was  mainly  due,  but  he  never  wrote  or 
told — possibly  he  never  fully  realized — how  very  much 
he  owed  to  Rawlins. 

By  the  fall  of  '62,  however,  Rawlins  was  so  thor 
oughly  assured  in  his  own  position  that  he  felt  the  time 
had  come  when  he  could  properly,  and  with  some  promise 
of  success,  proceed  against  the  "  detrimentals  "  who  still 
clung  like  military  parasites  to  the  fortunes  of  their 
commander,  and  who  might  yet  drag  him  down.  It 
was  just  at  this  time  that  there  came  to  him  from  the 
army  in  the  East  that  other  son  of  Illinois,  a  soldier,  and 
the  son  of  a  soldier  who  seemed  to  beget  nothing  but 
soldiers  (for  three  brothers  were  from  the  beginning 
of  the  war  gallant  and  brilliant  officers),  one  of  them 
rising  to  almost  dazzling  prominence  and  distinction. 

216 


Copyright  by  I).  Applelon  &  Co. 

MAJOR-GENERAL  JAMES   H.    WILSON 

At  the  close  of  the  Civil  War 
From  his  own  memoirs,  "Under  the  Old  Flag' 


GRANT  AND  RAWLINS 

The  father  had  served  with  Lincoln  in  the  Black  Hawk 
war,  and  was  known  of  old  to  most  men  in  the  history 
of  the  Prairie  State.  It  was  partly  because  of  this 
that  Rawlins  so  cordially  welcomed  the  young  lieutenant, 
Wilson,  of  the  Engineers,  when  he  reported  for  duty  at 
Grant's  headquarters,  highly  recommended  by  the  gen 
erals  he  had  served  in  the  East. 

The  war  was  nearly  a  year  and  a  half  old  when 
James  H.  Wilson  joined  Grant's  staff.  He  had  been 
graduated  at  the  Point  in  1860  under  the  eyes  of  the 
tactician  Hardee,  had  served  with  McPherson  on  the 
Pacific  coast,  had  been  hurried  East  with  him  in  '61, 
and  after  vigorous  service  on  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  had 
made  the  Antietam  campaign  with  McClellan.  He  had 
also  made  close  and  curious  study  of  the  several  generals 
with  whom  he  had  been  brought  in  contact,  and  it  is  fair 
to  assume  that  he  had  heard  something  of  the  talk 
about  Grant  indulged  in  about  McClellan's  headquarters. 
It  so  happened  that  Grant  had  gone  to  Memphis  when 
this  new  arrival  reported  to  Rawlins,  the  chief  of  staff. 
It  is  characteristic  of  Rawlins  that  he  should  have 
cordially  greeted  the  newcomer,  and  then  gone  straight 
to  the  heart  of  the  matter  which  at  that  moment  was 
giving  him  most  concern.  "  I  know  all  about  you,"  he 
said :  "  I  knew  your  father  and  I'm  damned  glad  you've 
come."  Rawlins,  it  may  be  observed,  was  often  "  rude 
in  speech  and  little  versed  in  the  set  phrase  "  of  polite 
society.  Rawlins  was  as  frankly  profane  as  Grant  was 
characteristically  pure. 

And  then  Rawlins  opened  his  heart  to  the  young 
West  Pointer,  told  him  that  there  were  men  on  Grant's 
staff  who  were  sure  to  harm  him  sooner  or  later.  "  I 
hear  you  don't  drink,"  said  he,  and  went  on  to  ask 
Wilson  to  enter  into  an  alliance  with  him,  offensive  and 
defensive,  against  the  evil  elements  about  them.  A 
total  abstainer  in  the  army  in  those  days  was  a  rarity. 
Wilson  in  his  youth  had  become  convinced  that  alcohol 

217 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

in  any  shape  is  a  bar  to  efficiency.  Wilson  was,  like 
Rawlins,  desperately  in  earnest  in  the  matter  of  the  war, 
and  he  welcomed  eagerly  the  opportunity  of  usefulness 
held  forth  in  an  alliance  with  Rawlins,  even  though 
when  he  stood  in  the  presence  of  his  new  general,  just 
returned  from  Memphis  to  the  front,  he  could  see  noth 
ing  whatever  in  Grant's  appearance  to  warrant  the 
faintest  anxiety. 

Accustomed  to  the  pomp  and  dignity  which  sur 
rounded  the  commanding  generals  with  whom  he  had 
served,  Lieutenant  Wilson  was  presented  to  a  simple- 
mannered,  soft-spoken,  rather  stooping  and  unsoldierly- 
looking  man,  utterly  unostentatious  and  utterly  free 
from  any  appearance  of  the  dissipation  attributed  to 
him.  Grant,  the  graduate  of  '43  and  one  of  the  famous 
fighters  of  the  old  Fourth  Infantry,  welcomed  the  young 
graduate  of  1860  as  though  he  were  one  of  the  family, 
chatted  with  him  as  to  affairs  at  the  front,  as  though  he 
had  quite  as  much  regard  for  the  opinions  of  the  lieu 
tenant  not  yet  twenty-five,  as  he  had  for  the  seniors 
about  him,  and  made  the  newcomer,  in  consequence, 
quite  at  home.  To  see  the  "  Chief  "  mingling,  as  it  were, 
on  terms  of  comradeship  with  those  about  him  was 
something  that  made  on  Wilson  a  deep  impression.  To 
see  that  there  were  a  certain  few  of  the  staff,  notably 
those  earliest  appointed,  who  took  advantage  of  this  and 
assumed  airs  of  greater  intimacy  and  closer  relation 
ship  was  something  obvious  to  others  at  the  time  and 
probably  to  Wilson,  though  in  his  vivid  Memoirs  he 
does  not  say  so.  But,  however  unfavorably  he  may 
have  been  impressed  with  these  objectionable  few,  how 
ever  strongly  he  was  impressed  by  and  drawn  to  his 
new  commander  and  future  chosen  chief,  it  was  evident 
that  the  young  West  Pointer  at  least  had  from  the  out 
set  begun  to  appreciate  the  man  who  more  than  any 
other  was  Grant's  right  arm  throughout  the  war — John 
A.  Rawlins,  of  Galena.  "  He  was  then,"  said  Wilson, 

218 


GRANT  AND  RAWLINS 

"about  thirty-two  years  old,  five  feet  seven  inches 
tall,  broad-shouldered,  stout  limbed  and  of  strong,  vigor 
ous  health.  With  jet-black  hair  and  brown,  steady  eyes, 
swarthy  complexion,  fine  teeth,  a  firm  mouth  and  a 
clear  resonant  voice,  he  impressed  me  as  a  very  earnest, 
able  man/'  Earnest,  able  and  efficient  he  proved  himself 
from  first  to  last,  and  the  stanchest,  steadiest  of  the  re 
markable  military  family  which  gradually  became  a 
council  of  ten  of  the  surest  and  strongest  men  in  their 
respective  lines  it  was  possible  for  a  general-in-chief  to 
draw  about  him.  Graduates  of  the  great  National 
Academy  occupied  the  headship  of  each  department,  ex 
cept  the  medical,  but  chief  of  them  all  by  common  con 
sent,  and  second  only  to  the  commanding  general  in  their 
faith,  favor  and  respect,  stood  Rawlins,  the  man  who 
did  not  hesitate  when  occasion  required,  but  for  very 
different  reasons,  to  whisper  to  his  chief  as  did  the 
chosen  slave  to  the  hero  of  old — "  Remember  thou  art 
mortal." 


CHAPTER  XXII 
GRANT  AND  McCLERNAND 

"  THE  winter  of  our  discontent  "  was  that  which  fol 
lowed  the  summer  of  Second  Bull  Run  and  Antietam 
in  the  East,  and  of  Perry ville,  Corinth  and  luka  in  the 
West.  Along  in  November  McClellan  had  managed  to 
march  his  loyal  friends  and  followers  of  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac  to  the  neighborhood  of  Warrenton,  Vir 
ginia,  where  at  last  the  over-patient  President  had  been 
compelled  to  relieve  him  of  the  command.  Along  in 
November  Grant  had  his  columns  in  northern  Mis 
sissippi,  striving  to  force  a  way  southward.  But  here  the 
country  was  sparsely  settled;  the  enemy  retired  before 
him,  and  then,  when  every  wheel  of  his  train  and 
batteries  was  hub  deep,  and  the  men's  brogans  were 
clogged  with  sticky  mud,  the  Southern  cavalry  circled  his 
flanks  and  fell  upon  the  supply  stations  at  the  rear.  The 
most  important  post  of  Holly  Springs  had  been  left  to 
the  care  of  a  colonel  who  had  already  shown  the  white 
feather,  and  should  earlier  have  been  shot  or  sent  home. 
A  second  time,  and  without  even  a  show  of  fight,  he 
miserably  surrendered. 

While  the  roads,  or  rather  the  lack  of  roads,  in  cen 
tral  Mississippi  had  more  to  do  with  the  turning  back 
of  Grant's  columns  than  the  loss  of  supply  depots  at 
the  rear,  it  seems  strange  that  Grant  should  have  trusted 
such  responsible  duty  to  such  an  irresponsible  man. 
Soft-hearted  we  know  he  was,  and  sympathetic  to  a 
remarkable  degree,  yet  he  was  firm  and  strong  enough 
to  "  break  "  a  brilliant  division  commander — a  class 
mate  and  comrade  of  old — and  send  him  home,  because 
he  was  perpetually  in  a  wrangle  with  the  generals 
about  him.  Again  Grant,  who  could  not  bear  the  sound 

220 


GRANT  AND  McCLERNAND 

of  suffering  among  the  wounded  after  Shiloh,  could 
hold  out  firmly  against  the  pleadings  of  a  mother  for  a 
worthless  son,  could  rebuke  his  own  kith  and  kin  when, 
in  one  of  the  rather  numerous  essays  to  "  work  "  him 
(we  seem  to  have  no  authorized  English  which  exactly 
expresses  the  meaning  conveyed  by  the  vernacular), 
they  sought  to  induce  him  to  take  upon  his  staff  a  young 
officer  most  justly  sentenced  by  court-martial  to  sus 
pension  from  rank  and  pay.  But  there  had  been  some 
thing  about  that  unfortunate  colonel's  case  which  in 
duced  Grant  to  give  him  another  chance  and  the  com 
mand  at  Holly  Springs.  That,  however,  was  the  end 
of  him. 

Now,  all  this  time  when  there  was  anything  worth 
reporting  Grant  reported  it  to  the  general-in-chief  at 
Washington,  but  up  to  January  little  had  occurred  to 
call  for  correspondence  except  as  to  mere  matters  of 
routine,  and  nothing  that  could  call  for  congratulation. 
Public  attention  for  the  time  had  been  attracted  else 
where — to  McClellan's  halting  tactics  along  the  Potomac 
— to  Buell's  foot  race  with  Bragg  from  the  Tennessee 
back  to  the  Ohio — to  the  indecisive  fight  of  Perryville. 
The  public  noted  with  mixed  emotions  that  the  Presi 
dent  had  had  to  remove  both  McClellan  and  Buell.  The 
public  noted  that  when  Buell  stepped  down  and  out 
the  next  in  rank  in  the  Army  of  the  Ohio,  and  the 
only  one  who  had  won  a  battle,  did  not  step  up  to  his 
place.  Instead  of  George  H.  Thomas  then  and  there 
becoming  head  of  what  had  so  long  been  referred  to  as 
"  Buell's  Army,"  the  command  went  to  William  S. 
Rosecrans,  of  Ohio,  and  the  public  at  first  did  not  know 
that  Thomas,  loyal  to  his  chief  and  to  his  flag  in  spite 
of  Stanton's  suspicions,  had  actually  registered  a  pro 
test  against  the  treatment  accorded  Buell,  and  thereby 
had  increased  the  disfavor  of  Stanton,  and  brought 
about  the  promotion  of  Rosecrans  instead  of  himself. 

These  matters  settled  as  winter  came  on,  attention 

221 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

once  more  began  to  centre  on  Grant  and  his  campaign, 
when  condensed  on  a  sudden  by  the  momentous  mid 
winter  battle  of  Murfreesboro,  between  Rosecrans  and 
Bragg,  beginning  in  the  overthrow  of  McCook  and 
Crittenden  at  the  right  and  centre,  and  bringing  up 
eventually  against  that  strong  and  steadfast  bulwark 
of  the  national  defense  in  this  and  every  fight  in  which 
he  figured,  George  H.  Thomas,  the  loyal  Virginian. 
People  in  and  about  Washington,  the  White  House  and 
the  War  Department,  were  so  busy  over  the  details  of 
that  narrow  escape  from  another  disaster  that  Grant 
and  his  affairs  for  the  time  being — the  month  of  Janu 
ary — were  left  to  look  after  themselves. 

And  at  this  very  juncture  it  seems  that  Grant  had 
taken  the  bit  in  his  teeth  and,  dropping  the  fruitless 
inland  campaign  in  central  Mississippi,  had  set  Torth 
upon  another,  down  stream,  just  in  time  to  checkmate 
an  insidious  move  to  deprive  him  of  the  opportunity 
which  proved  the  turning  point — just  in  time  to  harness 
the  tide  which,  taken  at  its  flood,  was  destined  to  lead 
on  to  fame  and  fortune. 

All  these  months  of  the  fall  and  early  winter  rumor 
had  been  busy  with  McClernand  and  his  plans  and  pro 
jects.  Bold,  aggressive,  ambitious,  a  man  of  no  mean 
ability  in  any  line  of  life,  and  a  capable  'and  proved 
division  leader  in  battle,  McClernand  was  possessed 
with  intense  desire  to  rise  to  the  supreme  command  in 
the  West  and  to  down  Grant ;  and  while  Grant,  having 
little  to  tell,  was  telling  the  War  Department  practically 
nothing  about  himself  or  his  plans,  McClernand,  sup 
plying  information  of  his  own  devising,  was  apparently 
having  the  ear  of  Secretary  Stanton  and  even  of  the 
President.  McClernand  had  innumerable  means  of  con 
ducting  his  campaign  against  his  chief.  He  had  been  a 
fellow  townsman  of  Lincoln,  and  claimed  fellowship 
on  that  account,  but  in  reality  there  was  far  less  to  this 
than  was  believed  by  him  and  his  friends,  or  by  the 

222 


GRANT  AND  McCLERNAND 

loyal  friends  of  Grant.  Lincoln  and  McClernand  had 
dwelt  together  in  Springfield,  but  hardly  in  touch.  In 
politics  they  had  differed  widely.  In  social  affairs  they 
had  mingled  little  if  at  all.  McClernand  was  a  vehement 
Douglas  Democrat  in  the  National  House  of  Represen 
tatives  ;  Lincoln  was  an  ardent  exponent  of  the  new  Re 
publican  faith  at  home.  From  having  been  a  backer  of 
Southern  rights  and  slavery,  McClernand,  with  Logan, 
Hurlbut  and  other  prominent  Illinois  Democrats,  had 
followed  the  noble  lead  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  whose 
thrilling  speech  to  the  Illinois  legislature  in  April,  1861, 
had  turned  wavering  spirits  to  warlike  and  determined 
stand  for  the  Union. 

Few  men  realized,  as  did  Lincoln,  the  desperate  need 
of  the  nation  in  this  hour  of  threatened  dissolution. 
It  was,  as  he  saw  it,  his  duty  and  the  proper  policy 
to  encourage  and  develop  this  Union  sentiment  among 
those  whose  political  sympathies  had  led  them  hitherto 
with  the  South.  It  was  this  in  great  measure  which 
prompted  him  to  reward  the  magnanimous  support  of 
Douglas  with  the  tender  of  a  major-generalship.  It 
was  this  that  led  to  the  appointment  at  the  outset  of 
McClernand,  Hurlbut  and  Prentiss  as  brigadiers  from 
the  State  of  Illinois,  when  older  and  larger  States  were 
accorded  but  one  or  two  or  none.  Far  better  soldiers 
in  the  regular  service  meanwhile  went  utterly  unnoticed. 

Now,  true  to  his  habit  of  seeking  advice  and  infor 
mation,  true  to  his  policy  of  encouraging  and  conciliat 
ing,  it  seems  that  in  this  autumn  of  '62  when  so  little 
was  being  done  to  his  comfort  or  satisfaction,  the  Presi 
dent  was  giving  ear  to  McClernand,  who  was  urging 
the  formation  of  a  strong  column  with  which  to  sweep 
down  the  Mississippi,  capture  Vicksburg  and  Natchez, 
and  open  the  Father  of  Waters  to  the  flag  and  the  fleets 
of  the  Union.  The  next  heard  of  McClernand  at 
Grant's  headquarters  in  the  field,  he,  who  had  left  the 
front  in  the  early  autumn,  was  conferring  with  Gover- 

223 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

nor  Yates  at  Springfield,  and  busying  himself  in  the  re 
cruiting  of  new  regiments,  the  organization  of  a  sepa 
rate  force  to  be  known  as  the  Army  of  the  Mississippi 
and  to  be  the  independent  command  of  Major-General 
John  A.  McClernand. 

Now,  Vicksburg  was  the  strategic  centre  of  the 
Southwest,  the  true  objective  point  of  the  campaign, 
and  the  very  core  of  the  great  military  department  of 
which  Grant  was  the  legal  head.  Yet  here  was  one 
of  his  juniors — it  is  misleading  to  refer  to  McClernand 
as  his  "  subordinate  " — planning  to  conduct  an  inde 
pendent  expedition  under  the  very  nose  of  the  com 
manding  general.  Grant,  unsuspicious  as  ever,  had  not 
seen  the  danger :  Wilson  and  Rawlins,  far  younger  but 
far  shrewder  men,  had  scented  it  from  the  start.  Wil 
son,  indeed,  had  heard  of  the  project  before  ever  he  left 
Washington  to  join  the  army  in  the  Southwest.  Wilson, 
after  the  mud  march  of  the  early  winter,  ventured  to 
open  his  heart  to  his  approachable  and  friendly  chief, 
and  tell  him  frankly  what  he  feared — that  Grant  was 
being  undermined  at  the  War  Department,  and  that  his 
proper  course  was  to  drop  the  land  route  forthwith,  and 
head  an  expedition  of  his  own  at  once  by  river.  This, 
it  seems,  was  exactly  what  Grant  had  already  deter 
mined  to  do — not  because  of  McClernand,  but  because  it 
was  now  the  obvious  move.  It  was  his  entire  right  and 
the  orders  were  therefore  issued  without  consultation 
with  higher  authority.  Having  nearly  completed  his 
preparations  Grant,  it  is  true,  notified  Halleck,  as 
general-in-chief,  of  his  intention  to  accompany  certain 
of  his  troops  on  an  expedition  toward  Vicksburg,  and 
Halleck,  for  once,  never  interposed  an  objection.  He 
probably  saw  at  a  glance  that  this  would  render  it  im 
possible  for  McClernand  to  succeed  in  his  scheme  of 
heading  a  separate  expedition,  and  Halleck  had  come 
to  know  McClernand  well,  to  respect  his  abilities  as  a 

224 


GRANT  AND  McCLERNAND 

statesman  and  his  courage  as  a  soldier,  but  to  distrust 
him  utterly  as  a  general. 

Then,  too,  just  when  it  may  have  seemed  to  Mc- 
Clernand  and  his  intimates  that  the  hour  of  their 
triumph  had  come,  the  President  took  a  hand  in  the 
game  and  issued,  all  unsolicited  by  Grant,  the  order 
which,  without  the  faintest  reflection  on  McClernand  or 
reference  to  his  aims  and  ambitions,  was  none  the  less 
a  cogent  reminder  to  that  chafing  and  restless  junior 
that  he  was  still  under  the  orders  and  control  of  Grant. 
It  was  a  bitter  blow  to  McClernand,  and  it  intensified 
the  antagonism  he  so  long  had  felt  toward  the  man 
whom  he  presumed  to  regard,  not  as  his  legitimate 
superior,  but  as  his  rival. 

Dividing  the  military  forces  of  the  Southwestern 
Department  into  four  army  corps,  the  President  made 
McClernand  head  of  the  Thirteenth,  Sherman  of  the 
Fifteenth,  Hurlbut  of  the  Sixteenth,  and  McPherson  of 
the  Seventeenth — all  to  constitute  the  Army  of  the 
Tennessee,  under  command  of  Major-General  U.  S. 
Grant.  Here,  therefore,  were  four  fine  Corps  d'armee 
of  seasoned  soldiers,  commanded  by  four  experienced 
leaders,  two  of  them  Ohio  "  regulars,"  unselfishly  loyal 
and  devoted  to  Grant,  and  two  of  them  Illinois  volun 
teers,  as  selfishly  disaffected  toward  their  chief,  though 
otherwise  loyal  to  their  country. 

But  how  can  a  soldier  be  loyal  to  his  colors,  his  oath 
of  office  and  his  country,  without  being  loyal  to  his 
immediate  superior?  At  the  very  moment  when  Grant 
was  setting  forth  upon  his  first  exploring  expedition 
down  the  river,  a  general  court-martial  was  sitting  at 
Washington  for  the  trial  of  a  major-general  whose  de 
votion  to  one  chief  had  led  him  into  disparagement  and 
suspected  disloyalty  toward  another. 

And  now  it  is  best  to  follow  to  its  conclusion  this 
matter  of  McClernand 's  disaffection  and  then  refer  to 
it  no  more. 

15  225 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Believing  that  he  had  been  promised  the  independent 
command  of  what  was  to  be  known  as  "  the  Army  of  the 
Mississippi,0  and  the  conduct  of  operations  at  the  heart 
of  the  Confederacy,  declaring  that  he  had  been  de 
frauded  of  these  by  Grant,  McClernand  set  forth  on  the 
Vicksburg  campaign  an  embittered  and  disappointed 
man,  full  of  wrath  toward  his  immediate  commander  in 
the  field,  and  still  believing  that  he  had  influence  enough 
with  the  President  and  the  War  Secretary  to  rid  him 
self  of  that  obnoxious  obstacle  to  his  hopes  and  am 
bitions.  The  stories  of  Grant's  inebriety  became  com 
mon  talk  in  Washington  in  the  spring  and  summer  of 
'63,  and  were  whispered  far  and  wide  throughout  the 
army.  The  President  and  Stanton  and  Halleck  seem 
to  have  heard  them  time  and  again,  and  yet  when  Mr. 
Charles  A.  Dana,  Assistant  Secretary  of  War,  was  sent 
as  confidential  adviser  of  the  administration  to  ac 
company  Grant's  headquarters  in  the  field — (a  most 
unusual  adjunct  to  the  entourage  of  a  commanding  gen 
eral,  and  one  to  which  many  a  general  would  have 
strenuously  objected) — only  once  could  Mr.  Dana  de 
tect  a  symptom  of  the  lapses  declared  to  be  habitual,  and 
it  was  not  long  before  Mr.  Dana  became  decidedly 
drawn  to  Grant,  and,  as  the  result  of  his  own  observa 
tion,  averse  to  McClernand.  His  letters  to  Stanton 
clearly  show  it. 

Now,  while  Grant  was  ever  courteous  and  con 
siderate  in  all  his  dealings  with  McClernand — calling 
him  into  conference  quite  as  much  as  he  did  his  other 
corps  commanders,  and  inviting  his  presence  whenever 
he  invited  theirs — it  was  noted  that  McClernand  pre 
served  at  all  times  a  stiff,  formal,  and  distant  manner 
toward  his  chief.  It  became  noticeable  that  McClernand 
early  in  the  campaign  displayed  irritation  and  annoy 
ance  whenever  he  received  an  order  from  Grant,  that 
he  was  slow  and  indifferent  as  to  obeying.  Little  by 
little  the  breach  seemed  to  widen,  notwithstanding  the 

226 


GRANT  AND  McCLERNAND 

efforts  of  Rawlins  and  Wilson,  both  of  whom  held 
McClernand  in  esteem  and  admiration  for  his  many 
strong,  virile  and  valuable  traits,  and  in  spite  of  Raw- 
lins's  every  effort  so  to  word  every  letter,  order  or 
endorsement  as  to  give  McClernand  no  excuse  what 
ever  for  misunderstanding,  misunderstandings  would 
occur — McClernand  seemed  determined  to  take  offense. 
It  is  a  marvel  that  the  final  "  break  "  did  not  sooner 
come,  but  it  is  certain  that  Grant  strove  to  humor  his 
surly  second  in  command,  unwilling  to  humiliate  so 
true  a  patriot  and  so  brave  a  soldier.  McClernand,  on 
the  other  hand,  seemed  as  firmly  bent  on  forcing  a  rup 
ture.  The  beginning  of  the  end  was  hastened  when 
Grant  was  urging  the  utmost  speed  in  ferrying  the 
army  across  to  Bruinsburg  for  the  forward  rush  on 
Jackson,  and,  according  to  Mr.  Dana,  McClernand  made 
preparations  to  bring  his  bride,  her  maid  and  all  her 
paraphernalia  over  into  Mississippi  with  the  army. 
Then  when  not  a  moment  should  have  been  lost  Mc 
Clernand  wished  to  hold  up  the  entire  movement  that 
he  might  tender  a  review  of  his  corps  to  Governor 
Yates,  who  had  come  down  to  visit  the  army.  Con 
trary  to  instructions,  also,  McClernand  ordered  a  salute 
fired  in  honor  of  the  Governor,  and  one  brigade,  at  least, 
lined  up  for  review.  It  was  absurd,  as  McClernand 
probably  had  sense  enough  to  know,  but  Grant's  refusal 
and  prompt  orders  to  move  at  once  seem  to  have  in 
censed  him  the  more.  In  his  anger  McClernand  dared 
to  disobey  positive  instructions  to  leave  his  wagons  at 
the  landing  when  the  column  took  the  route  for  Port 
Gibson.  Grant  and  his  staff,  including  Mr.  Dana,  left 
behind  them  everything  but  the  clothes  they  had  on, 
and  made  the  march  to  the  front  on  borrowed  horses 
sooner  than  miss  the  first  fight — a  battle  brilliantly  won 
mainly  by  McClernand's  men,  they  having  the  advance. 
And  here  again  McClernand  wilfully  and  defiantly 
flouted  the  orders  of  his  commander  present  on  the 

227 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

field.  Grant,  knowing  the  importance  of  harboring  am 
munition,  late  in  the  action  directed  the  batteries  to 
slacken  fire:  McClernand,  hearing  this,  loudly  and 
instantly  ordered  them  to  continue,  declaring  that  he 
had  fought  this  battle  himself,  meant  to  fight  it  through 
and  would  not  be  interfered  with  by  anybody. 

Yet  a  little  longer  he  tarried  with  them,  utterly 
spoiling  Grant's  combinations  at  Champion's  Hill  by 
slow,  dilatory,  half-hearted  methods,  when  bold  and 
impetuous  advance  was  ordered  and  expected.  For  this 
in  part  Grant  could  not  blame  him,  for  the  orders  sent 
McClernand  on  the  previous  day  were  to  "  proceed  with 
extreme  caution  and  not  provoke  a  battle,"  so  that  when 
the  heavy  fighting  began  about  Champion's  Hill  early 
in  the  morning,  McClernand,  still  several  miles  to  the 
southeast,  took  until  midday  to  begin  the  advance.  In 
deed  it  was  not  until  then  that  he  received  Grant's 
urgent  orders  for  haste.  Hasten,  however,  he  did  not. 
McClernand  could  fight  boldly  and  well  for  himself, 
but  not  at  the  beck  of  Grant.  Presently  came  the  siege 
which  might  have  been  averted  had  Pemberton  been 
"  rounded  up,"  as  probably  he  could  have  been  at 
Champion's  Hill,  and  here  McClernand's  unruly  spirit 
burst  all  bounds.  A  perfectly  legitimate  and  reasonable 
order  was  borne  to  him  by  the  man  of  all  others  who, 
with  Rawlins,  had  shown  himself  to  be  a  friend  and  well- 
wisher.  Very  possibly  Lieut.-Colonel  Wilson  had  been 
selected  because  of  the  close  friendship  between  the  Mc 
Clernand  and  Wilson  families,  the  comradeship  of  the 
elder  Wilson  and  McClernand  in  the  Black  Hawk  war, 
and  because,  with  Rawlins,  Wilson  had  striven  hard 
after  Port  Gibson  to  bring  about  a  better  understanding 
between  the  two  senior  generals.  By  that  time,  how 
ever,  Grant  had  been  affronted  too  much  and  too  often. 

At  all  events,  it  was  Colonel  Wilson,  the  Illinois 
West  Pointer,  who  was  sent  to  McClernand  with  a  very 
simple  order,  nothing  more  than  to  strengthen  the  out- 

228 


GRANT  AND  McCLERNAND 

posts  of  the  Thirteenth  Corps  at  Hall's  Ferry,  on  the 
Big  Black — an  order  which  should  have  been  received 
with  soldierly  appreciation  and  obeyed  with  cheerful 
and  soldierly  alacrity.  To  the  utter  amaze  of  the  younger 
officer,  the  elder  instantly  and  furiously  replied :  "  I'll 
be  G — d  d — d  if  I'll  do  it!  I  am  tired  of  being  dictated 
to!  I  won't  stand  it  any  longer,  and  you  can  go  back 
and  tell  General  Grant,"  winding  up,  says  Wilson  in 
his  Memoirs,  "  with  a  volley  of  oaths  which  seemed  as 
though  they  might  have  been  aimed  at  me  as  at  our  com 
mon  chief." 

This  was  too  much  for  a  soldier  and  a  gentleman  to 
hear.  First  being  careful  to  repeat  the  order  as  given, 
and  so  to  acquit  himself  of  his  official  duty,  the  West 
Pointer  proceeded  to  tell  his  fellow  citizen  and  soldier 
from  Illinois  that  even  a  major-general  couldn't  curse 
him  with  impunity,  and  that  another  word  of  the  kind 
would  lead  to  his  pulling  the  general  off  his  horse  and 
"  beating  the  boots  off  him  "  in  front  of  his  men. 

It  sobered  McClernand  instantly.  He  promptly 
begged  Wilson's  pardon,  assured  him  of  his  friendship, 
begged  him  to  come  to  his  tent  and  have  a  drink  with  him 
— he  who  couldn't  say  enough  about  Grant's  ever  doing 
likewise — and  strove  to  explain  the  incident  by  the 
singular  euphemism,  "  I  was  simply  expressing  my  in 
tense  vehemence  on  the  subject  matter,  sir." 

But  Wilson,  thoroughly  incensed  at  such  exhibition 
of  disloyalty  and  insubordination,  refused  the  proffered 
amende — he  always  refused  to  drink — and  rode  back  to 
headquarters  and  very  properly  reported  the  entire 
affair  to  Grant,  and  Grant,  far  from  being  filled  with 
wrath,  was  apparently  filled  only  with  merriment.  Those 
words  of  McClernand  had  furnished  him  with  just  the 
phraseology  he  needed  in  frequent  and  mild  reproofs  to 
those  about  him,  notably  that  fidus  Achates,  Rawlins, 
who  swore  like  a  trooper  when  even  mildly  warmed  up. 
Time  and  again  thereafter  when  Grant  had  occasion 

229 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

to  note  or  reprove  some  outburst  of  rank  blasphemy 
within  his  hearing,  he  would  turn  to  his  nearest  as 
sociate,  as  Wilson  tells  us,  and  say,  with  a  smile,  "  He's 
not  cursing.  He's  simply  expressing  his  intense  vehe 
mence  an  the  subject  matter."  And  so  even  this  flag 
rant  bit  of  defiance  on  part  of  McClernand  was  passed 
over.  But  the  next  settled  it. 

McClernand  had  submitted  a  long  detailed  report 
to  headquarters  of  the  Army  of  the  Tennessee,  setting 
forth  the  deeds,  the  services,  the  sufferings  of  the  Thir 
teenth  Corps  from  the  start  of  the  campaign  to  the 
repulse  of  the  grand  attack  on  the  22nd.  One  has  only 
to  read  it  as  it  stands  to-day  (Official  Records,  Civil 
War,  Series  I,  Ch.  xxiv,  Part  i)  to  see  that  it  exalted 
the  Thirteenth  and  slighted  every  other  corps.  It  was 
meant,  of  course,  for  the  eyes  of  the  administration  at 
Washington,  and  it  was  duly  forwarded  by  Grant,  but 
with  the  comment  that  it  was  "  pretentious  and  egotis 
tical."  Then  there  suddenly  appeared  in  the  columns  of 
the  Northern  press,  widely  circulated  over  the  entire 
country,  a  copy  of  what  purported  to  be  a  general  order 
issued  by  the  authority  of  Major-General  John  A. 
McClernand,  eulogizing  the  heroism,  skill  and  services 
of  the  officers  and  men  under  his  leadership  throughout 
the  campaign  culminating  at  Vicksburg,  and  correspond 
ingly  belittling  the  deeds  of  the  men  of  Sherman  and 
McPherson.  Copies  of  the  papers  speedily  reached  the 
camps  in  Mississippi,  and  great  was  the  wrath  in  the 
tents  of  the  I5th  and  I7th — the  rival  corps.  Sherman 
and  McPherson  promptly,  Sherman  in  a  most  indignant 
letter,  laid  the  matter  before  Grant.  If  any  such  order 
had  been  issued  by  one  of  the  corps  commanders,  regula 
tions  demanded  that  a  copy  be  sent  to  Grant's  head 
quarters,  and  none  whatever  had  reached  him.  There 
could  be  little  doubt,  however,  of  its  being  genuine. 
Every  word  smacked  of  McClernand,  but  the  matter 
was  "respectfully  referred  to  Major-General  McCler- 

230 


GRANT  AND  McCLERNAND 

nand  for  explanation,"  and  that  misguided  officer  as 
promptly  replied  to  the  effect  that  the  order  was  not 
only  correctly  printed,  but  he  was  prepared  to  stand 
by  it  and  its  allegations. 

Then  came  the  dramatic  sequel.  McClernand  had 
of  course  automatically  severed  his  connection  with 
the  Army  of  the  Tennessee,  and  could  have  no  hope  of 
future  use  or  usefulness  therein.  It  is  probable  that  he 
had  determined  that  the  time  was  ripe  for  final  rupture 
with  Grant.  He  believed  himself  Grant's  superior  in 
everything  but  the  date  of  commission.  He  probably 
believed  that  he  could  convince  the  President  and  the 
War  Secretary  that  he  and  not  Grant  should  be  the  com 
mander  at  Vicksburg — that  he,  rather  than  Grant,  was 
entitled  to  the  credit  of  the  campaign,  and  that  he,  not 
Grant,  would  be  the  man  to  complete  the  capture  of 
Vicksburg  and  reap  the  great  rewards  of  the  crown 
ing  exploit.  But  he  reckoned  without  his  host.  Grant's 
hold  on  the  situation,  on  the  President,  the  Secretary, 
and  on  the  people  of  the  North  was  such  that  nothing 
could  unseat  him.  McClernand's  official  accusation  that 
Grant  was  indebted  to  "  the  forbearance  of  his  officers  " 
for  his  retention  in  the  service  fell  on  deaf  ears.  The 
appeal  of  the  ultra-pious  and  prohibition  committees  for 
Grant's  relief  from  command  because  of  alleged  in 
dulgence  in  liquor  drew  from  the  long-suffering  and 
ever  tolerant  Lincoln  only  a  whimsical  expression  of 
the  wish  that  he  knew  where  Grant  got  his  whiskey — he 
would  "  be  so  glad  to  prescribe  some  of  it  for  some  of 
his  other  generals."  Little  by  little  the  star  of  Grant 
emerged  from  the  clouds  lowering  for  a  time  about  it, 
and  now  seemed  burning  brilliant  and  serene.  And  so 
it  resulted  that  gallant  but  wrong-headed  McGernand, 
utterly  baffled  and  disappointed,  dropped  into  the  back 
ground  and  finally,  after  repeated  effort  to  have  his  case 
reopened,  tendered  his  resignation  at  the  close  of  1864. 

It  was  a  dramatic  scene  that  night  in  the  camp  of 
231 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

McClernand,  when,  between  one  and  two  in  the  morn 
ing,  he  was  aroused  by  his  orderly  with  the  information 
that  the  Inspector-General  of  the  Army  of  the  Tennessee 
had  come  with  important  orders.  McClernand  well 
knew  what  that  meant ;  arose,  and  with  dignity  and  de 
liberation  clothed  himself  in  complete  uniform,  placed 
his  sword  upon  the  table  in  the  centre  of  his  official  tent, 
saw  to  it  that  the  candles  were  lighted,  took  his  seat  in 
solemn  state,  then  gave  directions  that  the  Inspector- 
General  be  admitted. 

To  him  entered  Lieutenant-Colonel  Wilson,  accu 
rately  uniformed  as  himself,  belted,  sashed  and  spurred, 
and  standing  at  attention  before  him,  and  with 
soldierly  salute,  delivered  himself  of  his  message: 

"  General,  I  have  an  important  order  for  you  which 
I  am  directed  to  deliver  into  your  hands  and  to  see  that 
you  read  it  in  my  presence,  that  you  understand  it,  and 
that  you  signify  your  immediate  obedience  of  it,"  and 
with  that  the  staff  officer  handed  the  seated  general  the 
sealed  envelope  containing  the  order  which  was  to  un 
seat  him,  watched  him  adjust  his  glasses,  open  and  read. 
Then  McClernand  looked  up  and  exclaimed,  "  Well,  sir, 
I  am  relieved !  "  A  brief  pause:  "  By  God,  sir,  we  are 
both  relieved !  " 

But  if  the  deposed  soldier  meant  that  Grant,  too, 
would  be  relieved  as  the  result  of  the  clash  between  them, 
he  misjudged  both  the  administration  and  the  people. 
With  the  following  day,  with  only  his  personal  staff 
about  him,  the  sore-hearted  general  was  speeding  north 
ward,  honored  for  his  courage,  his  vim  and  energy  on 
many  a  field,  mourned  by  many  a  member  of  the  Thir 
teenth  Corps,  even  though  certain  of  its  generals  dis 
avowed  his  statements,  and  bearing  to  his  self-imposed 
retirement  not  a  little  of  deep  regard  even  among  those 
who  deplored  his  intractable  spirit,  and  his  deliberate 
defiance  of  a  commander  who  would  gladly  have  been 
his  friend. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 
GRANT  AND  A  GREAT  CAMPAIGN 

THE  campaign  of  Vicksburg  began  in  a  series  of 
tentatives  at  the  bluffs  east  of  the  Yazoo  "  bottom,"  but 
in  that  network  of  bayous  and  tangled  morass,  the 
natural  obstacles  were  more  numerous  than  those  de 
vised  by  human  agency.  Only  on  the  west  bank  could 
the  army  find  suitable  foothold,  and  there  below  them, 
perched  on  its  commanding  heights,  the  heavy  batteries 
of  the  South  guarded  the  approaches  to  Vicksburg  and 
swept  the  wide  waters  of  the  Mississippi.  The  one  plan 
of  all  others,  after  canals,  cut  offs,  direct  assault,  and 
the  Yazoo  route  had  all  been  discussed,  was  to  float 
the  gunboats  and  supply  steamers  under  cover  of  night 
down  past  the  thronging  city,  march  the  troops  through 
the  forest  and  along  the  twisting  estuaries  of  the  op 
posite  shore,  reunite  troops  and  flotilla  miles  below  the 
batteries,  ferry  across  to  the  Mississippi  shore  and 
strike  inward  at  once.  Bold,  hazardous,  "  impossible," 
insisted  Sherman,  when  it  was  broached  in  his  presence. 
Impracticable,  said  others.  "  The  boats  will  be  blown 
out  of  water,"  declared  the  timid.  But  Grant,  Rawlins 
and  Wilson  (Wilson  who,  starting  as  lieutenant  of 
Engineers  on  the  staff,  had  risen  in  less  than  six  months 
to  be  Grant's  Inspector- General  and  trusted  adviser) 
stood  together  against  all  opposition,  pointed  out  that 
Farragut's  fleet  had  successfully  steamed  up  stream 
against  heavier  guns  and  more  of  them,  and  that  the 
navy's  wooden  walls  at  Port  Royal  had  triumphed  over 
the  earthworks,  thanks  to  better  gunnery.  It  was 
argued  that  Farragut  and  Dupont  had  fine  guns  and  gun 
ners,  and  could  shoot  back,  but  that  here  the  flotilla — a 
score  of  flimsy  craft  of  all  shapes  and  sizes,  with  only 

233 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

six  battle  boats  by  way  of  convoy — could  only  float  by 
and  be  shot  at.  The  question  was  put  to  Porter,  Far- 
ragut's  plucky  second-in-command  at  the  taking  of  New 
Orleans,  and  now  at  the  head  of  the  gunboats  acting 
in  aid  of  Grant  and  his  eager  army.  Porter's  answer 
settled  it.  Suppose  he  did  lose  a  boat  or  two?  Most 
of  them  could  probably  run  the  batteries  without  great 
damage,  and  that  meant  success. 

And  so  by  devious  routes,  bridging  the  bayous  and 
patching  the  levees  as  they  went,  the  long  columns 
marched  away  through  the  Louisiana  lowlands  opposite 
Vicksburg,  emerged  from  the  dense  woods  a  dozen  miles 
below,  parked  their  wagons,  pitched  their  tents,  and  then 
waited,  wondering  what  was  to  come  next,  for  only  a 
senior  or  two  was  entrusted  with  the  secret. 

A  wonderful  night  was  that  of  April  i6th,  soft  and 
moonlit.  Too  bright  for  the  purpose,  hazarded  some, 
who  feared  and  doubted  to  the  last,  but  Porter 
marshalled  his  ironclads,  six  in  number,  and  with  a  few 
experimental  steamers  close  following,  waved  adieu  to 
the  commanding  general  above  the  great  bend,  and 
silently  bore  away  on  that  tremendous  mission.  Grant, 
his  staff,  his  wife  and  children,  seated  on  the  upper 
deck  of  the  headquarters  steamer,  slowly  followed  in 
their  wake  until,  almost  within  range  of  the  northern 
most  batteries,  the  boat  was  held,  and  with  anxiety  in 
tense,  they  watched  and  waited. 

Then  all  on  a  sudden  pandemonium  broke  loose 
along  the  heights  above  Vicksburg  as  it  became  evident 
that  the  Yankee  gunboats  were  actually  steering  straight 
into  their  teeth.  All  at  once  the  huge  guns  began  to  bel 
low,  and  the  shells  to  burst  with  fearful  crashings  above 
and  about  those  devoted  and  deserted  decks.  Every 
man  except  the  helmsman  and  certain  necessary 
watchers  had  been  ordered  below  on  the  ironclads,  each 
of  which  as  it  could  bring  its  guns  to  bear,  took  up  the 
thunderous  chorus.  Wooden  buildings  along  the  water 

234 


THE  OLD  GRIMSLEY  AND  BRIDLE 
Grant's  favorites  while  with  the  Army  of  the  Tennessee 

From   the  originals  now  in  the  library  of  the  Chicago   Historical   Society 
Courtesy  of  Miss   Caroline  M.  Mcllvaine,  Librarian 


GRANT  AND  A  GREAT  CAMPAIGN 

front,  suddenly  bursting  into  flame,  lighted  up  the  sur 
face  of  the  swollen  river,  and  all  too  plainly  revealed 
every  vessel  of  the  daring  fleet.  Full  three  miles  or 
more  they  had  to  run  the  gauntlet  of  those  fire-belching 
batteries,  and,  marvellous  as  it  may  seem,  all  but  one 
steamer  managed  to  float  securely  by.  Long  ere  morn 
ing  came,  army  and  navy  were  exchanging  greeting  and 
congratulation  at  New  Carthage,  away  below  Vicks- 
burg — the  citadel  of  the  Mississippi  was  turned. 

And  when  the  last  boat  vanished  in  the  dim  and 
mystic  light  beyond  the  bend  and  below  the  lurid  glare 
about  the  batteries,  Grant,  the  most  impassive  of  the 
watchers,  could  bear  the  suspense  no  longer,  and  in  spite 
of  the  not  unnatural  and  quite  outspoken  opposition  of 
his  wife,  long  accustomed  to  domestic  dominion  over 
him,  ordered  horses,  called  to  Wilson,  the  best  rider  of 
his  staff,  to  accompany  him,  and  set  forth  at  the  peep 
of  day  on  a  seventy-five  mile  trot  over  those  devious 
roads  and  bridges,  to  reach  the  appointed  rendezvous 
far  down  stream  and  get  the  details  fresh  from  the  lips 
of  Porter  himself.  "  My  husband  is  a  very  obstinate 
man,"  sighed  Julia  Dent,  but  it  was  a  trait  that  hitherto, 
in  her  experience  at  least,  had  not  been  unconquerable. 
A  new  and  different  and  almost  unrecognizable  Ulysses 
was  this  who  had  so  eagerly  welcomed  her  and  the  be 
loved  children,  when  they  came  to  join  him  at  Memphis, 
and  if  the  usually  tractable  husband  and  father  of  the 
Hardscrabble  and  Galena  days  could  be  so  different 
while  still  far  from  the  actual  concern  of  imminent 
battle,  how  much  the  more  should  he  be  "  different " 
here  at  the  far  front,  and  in  the  face  of  tremendous 
responsibilities?  It  was  probably  not  until  the  outset 
of  the  Vicksburg  campaign  that  the  former  belle  of  the 
old  barracks,  the  future  mistress  of  the  White  House, 
began  to  realize  that  there  were  occasions  on  which  her 
long  devoted  liege  could  and  would  act  independently  of 
her  views  and  wishes.  But  this  is  mere  "  digression 

235 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

from  our  purpose,"  which  was  to  tell  of  Grant  in  one 
of  his  greatest  campaigns,  leaving  to  later  pages  the 
discussion  of  his  attitude  as  husband  and  as  father, 
wherein  the  true  Grant  shone  as  tenderly  and  truly  as, 
ever  tenaciously  and  truly,  he  held  to  the  line  in  head 
long  fight. 

Seventy-five  miles  rode  Grant  between  dawn  and 
dusk  of  that  April  day,  to  congratulate  Porter  and  con 
fer  with  McClernand  long  into  the  night.  Seventy-five 
miles  he  rode  back  again  the  following  day,  he  and 
Wilson  well  nigh  using  up  their  mounts  and  orderlies, 
but  seemingly  returning  fit  and  ready  for  even  harder 
riding.  Speedily  Grant  sent  southward  all  the  other 
boats  of  his  flotilla,  laden  with  the  needed  food,  forage, 
ammunition,  medical  supplies,  and  the  inevitable  im 
pedimenta  without  which  an  army  cannot  move.  Speed 
ily  he  decided  on  the  landing  place  on  the  Mississippi 
shore  just  below  the  mouth  of  Bayou  Pierre.  Straight 
from  the  hamlet  of  Bruinsburg  Grant  launched  his 
columns  to  the  interior,  first  battling  and  beating  the 
enemy  at  Port  Gibson ;  then,  to  the  amaze  and  consterna 
tion  of  the  Southern  leaders,  and  to  the  outspoken  re 
monstrance  of  Sherman,  cutting  loose  from  his  base 
and  all  communication  with  superior  authority,  led 
straightway  northeastward  for  Jackson,  the  capital, 
there  to  overwhelm  and  put  to  flight  the  Southern  forces 
under  Joseph  E.  Johnston,  hastening  to  the  aid  of  those 
of  Pemberton.  Then,  having  smashed  the  army  in  his 
front,  back  more  leisurely  he  turned  to  challenge  the 
army  in  his  rear,  driving  Pemberton  before  him;  well 
nigh  trapping  him  at  Champion's  Hill,  bridging  the  Big 
Black  and  storming  his  lines  on  the  westward  bluffs,  and 
finally,  in  just  twenty  days  from  the  hour  of  his  setting 
foot  on  Mississippi  shore,  penning  Pemberton  and  his 
thirty  thousand  within  the  walls  of  Vicksburg. 

Twenty  days  of  a  campaign  in  which,  as  military 
experts  have  said,  the  generalship  was  absolutely  per- 

236 


GRANT  AND  A  GREAT  CAMPAIGN 

feet — a  thing  that  so  rarely  can  be  declared  of  any  gen 
eral  that  it  becomes  remarkable  in  case  of  one  so  often 
denounced  and  derided  as  Grant.  Twenty  days  of  swift 
marching  and  sharp  fighting  in  which,  night  and  day, 
Grant  was  alive  with  energy  and  electric  force,  in  saddle 
from  dawn  till  dark,  sending  orders  and  despatches 
hither  and  yon,  receiving  reports  from  front,  flank  and 
rear  until  after  midnight,  snatching  short  hours  of  sleep, 
rolled  in  his  blanket  in  a  fence  corner,  and  seldom  un 
dressing,  even  when  bed  and  roof  were  provided  by 
certain  wide-awake  members  of  the  staff.  Twenty  days 
in  which  he  gave  his  generals  and  his  officers  but  little 
rest,  his  enemy  still  less,  himself  least  of  all,  keeping 
everybody  on  the  move  until  he  had  split  the  Southern 
force  in  twain,  flung  one-half  back  across  the  Pearl, 
and  chased  the  other  within  the  lines  of  Vicksburg. 
Twenty  days  of  a  campaign  which  it  is  safe  to  say  Hal- 
leek  would  never  have  sanctioned  had  he  been  given  a 
chance  to  interpose,  and  which  Sherman  stood  out 
against  to  the  very  last,  and  then  owned  up  like  a  man 
and  said,  with  Shermanic  emphasis  and  embellishment, 
that  Grant  was  right  and  he  was  wrong.  Twenty  days 
in  which  Grant's  strategy  and  tactics  stand  unchallenged, 
and  which  might  and  should  have  wound  up  the  entire 
campaign  but  for  the  few  precious  hours  lost  on  the 
Union  left  the  day  of  Champion's  Hill.  That  mis 
understanding  with  McClernand  cost  us  the  support  of 
his  strong  Western  division  just  at  a  time  when 
McPherson,  reaching  far  around  the  northern  flank, 
had  flung  an  arm  about  the  retreating  foe,  and  Hovey's 
men  had  even  barred  and  blocked  the  road  to  Vicks 
burg  and  to  temporary  safety. 

Forty-five  days  longer,  once  he  reached  the  cover  of 
that  long  chain  of  skilfully-planned  intrenchments, 
Pemberton  was  able  to  withstand,  first  the  fierce  assaults 
and  later  the  slow,  methodical  siege  approaches,  with 
every  day  bringing  him  nearer  and  nearer  the  verge  of 

237 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

starvation,  and  no  nearer  relief  or  hope.  Everywhere 
just  then  the  forces  of  the  Confederacy  were  vehe 
mently  occupied,  and  no  column  could  be  spared  and  sent 
to  hew  at  Grant's  flanks  or  rear,  and  make  him  loose  his 
inflexible  hold.  Away  to  the  east  Lee  was  marching  into 
Maryland  and  on  to  the  great  and  dramatic  three  days' 
pitched  battle  with  Meade  on  Pennsylvania  soil.  In  the 
middle  west  Bragg  and  Rosecrans  were  crouching  like 
Japanese  wrestlers  manoeuvring  for  an  advantage  and 
poising  for  a  spring.  In  eastern  Mississippi  Johnston 
was  striving  to  rally  in  sufficient  strength  to  once  again 
try  conclusions  with  Grant,  but  already  the  South  had 
found  itself  without  reserves.  And  so  it  happened  that 
while  Pemberton  could  not  get  a  man  to  help  him,  Grant, 
whose  thin  lines  had  wrapped  the  long  concave  of  outer 
heights,  from  the  Yazoo  above  to  the  Mississippi  below, 
who  with  less  than  forty  thousand  had  penned  his  foe- 
man,  now  by  mid  June  had  twice  that  number  at  his 
command,  and  absolute  confidence  in  the  final  result. 

It  came  just  as  the  nation,  with  a  gasp  of  relief  and 
thanksgiving,  learned  that  Lee,  after  tremendous  bat 
tling,  had  recoiled  before  the  arms  of  Meade,  and  was 
falling  back  from  Gettysburg.  While  the  issue  in  Penn 
sylvania  was  yet  in  doubt,  while  Lee's  sullen  lines  still 
confronted  Meade  across  the  drenched  and  sodden  fields 
at  Gettysburg,  in  no  uncertain  tones  came  the  announce 
ment  from  the  West:  Pemberton  had  surrendered  at 
discretion ;  Grant  again  had  triumphed  over  his  foes ; 
Vicksburg  had  fallen,  and  the  Father  of  Waters  rolled 
"  unvexed  to  the  sea." 


CHAPTER  XXIV 
GRANT  IN  THE  HOUR  OF  TRIUMPH 

DURING  that  "  winter  of  our  discontent "  in  which 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac  was  fearfully  misled  and  as 
fearfully  hammered  at  Fredericksburg,  and  the  Army 
of  the  Ohio  was  fearfully  hammered  and  well  nigh  over 
thrown  at  Murfreesboro,  and  the  Army  of  the  Ten 
nessee  was  mired  in  the  mud  of  northern  Mississippi 
and  compelled  to  put  back  for  supplies,  the  people  of 
the  North  became  insistent.  The  administration  could 
not  explain  how  or  why  it  was  that  with  bigger  armies, 
better  equipment,  and  the  best  of  intentions  our  gen 
erals  were  apparently  getting  the  worst  of  every  en 
counter.  Something  had  to  be  done  to  bring  about 
better  results,  and  after  long  pondering  Mr.  Secretary 
Stanton  hit  on  the  happy  expedient  of  sending  a  letter 
to  certain  commanders  of  separate  armies  in  the  field 
in  which  he  promised  the  victor  of  the  first  decisive 
battle  a  major-generalship  in  the  regular  army.  Mr. 
Stanton  had  little  faith  in  human  nature.  He  doubted 
the  existence  of  the  governing  principles  of  a  soldier. 
He  could  not  believe  that  pure,  unadulterated  patriotism 
existed  among  our  generals.  Without  the  promise  of 
unusual  fee  or  reward,  reasoned  the  lawyer,  no  man 
could  be  expected  to  exert  himself;  hence  his  offer  to 
the  professional  soldiers  at  the  head  of  his  forces  at 
the  front. 

As  an  illustration  of  temperament  the  effect  was  in 
teresting.  Rosecrans  raged  in  spirit,  and  wrote  a  ve 
hement  and  indignant  reply  to  the  effect  that  he  desired 
no  bribe  in  the  performance  of  a  soldier's  duty.  Grant 
read  his,  stowed  it  in  his  pocket,  smoked  and  said  noth 
ing.  Hooker,  at  the  head  of  "  the  finest  army  on  the 

239 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

planet,"  was  speedily  eliminated  at  Chancellorsville  by 
a  much  smaller  force  under  Lee,  and  by  the  adroit  use 
of  Stonewall  Jackson's  pet  device,  one  which  every  gen 
eral  in  the  Potomac  Army  should  have  confidently  ex 
pected,  and  which  both  the  division  and  corps  com 
mander  on  the  exposed  flank  refused  to  believe,  even 
when  reliably  and  repeatedly  warned  of  its  coming. 
Hooker  was  driven  back  to  his  camps,  and  Chancellors 
ville  added  to  the  array  of  our  humiliations. 

Even  Grant's  spirited  campaign  in  central  Missis 
sippi,  and  the  bottling  up  of  Pemberton,  hardly  served 
to  restore  Union  hopes.  Then  came  Lee's  northward 
spring,  the  clinch  at  Gettysburg,  the  final  repulse  after 
a  tremendous  conflict,  the  unmolested  return  to  Vir 
ginia.  The  North  thanked  God  for  the  relief  that  fol 
lowed  that  three  days'  battle,  so  close  was  the  issue,  so 
narrow  the  escape  from  fell  disaster.  In  spite  of  the 
urging  of  the  President,  the  War  Secretary,  the  Gen 
eral-in-Chief,  Meade,  the  victor  on  the  spot,  had  felt  the 
pulse  of  his  almost  breathless  army  and  doubted  its 
power  to  stand  another  round.  Lee  should  never  have 
been  permitted  to  recross  the  Potomac,  thought  Mr. 
Lincoln,  and  surely  it  seems  so  to  students  who  read 
the  conditions  and  figures.  But  the  flower  of  the  South 
was  in  those  stubborn  ranks  of  Lee,  Longstreet,  and 
Ewell.  Fighting  on  the  defensive  Meade  had  lost  one- 
fourth  of  his  array  in  the  three  days'  battle.  How  very 
much  more  might  he  lose  if  he  hurled  his  wearied  men 
on  those  sullenly  inviting,  retiring  lines?  Better  leave 
well  enough  alone,  was  the  counsel  of  some  of  Meade's 
ablest  advisers.  It  was  all  well  enough  to  clamor  from 
a  safe  distance  for  instant  pursuit  and  attack.  It  was 
what  the  administration  prayed  for,  and  probably  most 
of  the  Northern  people,  but,  as  Longstreet  distinctly  told 
the  writer  in  New  Orleans  in  1872,  no  more  fervently 
than  did  the  men  of  Lee,  especially  when  intrenched  at 
Williamsport. 

340 


GRANT  IN  THE  HOUR  OF  TRIUMPH 

And  so,  in  spite  of  partial  triumph  and  relief,  Get 
tysburg  was  not  the  half  that  Lincoln,  Stanton  and 
Halleck  hoped  for,  whereas,  up  from  the  far  southwest, 
came  the  details  of  another  great  surrender  to  that  in 
comprehensible  Grant;  and  now,  at  last,  even  Halleck 
threw  up  the  sponge  with  which  he  had  smudged  the 
earlier  successes  of  Henry  and  Donelson,  the  stubborn 
stand  at  Shiloh,  the  skill  and  strategy  which  turned 
Vicksburg  and  led  on  to  Jackson.  With  Pemberton 
fairly  penned  and  Johnston  held  at  bay,  with  Vicks 
burg  captured  and  the  Mississippi  freed,  Halleck  owned 
that  Grant  after  all  stood  pre-eminent  in  his  line,  and  the 
prize  of  the  major-generalship  in  the  regular  army  went 
forthwith  to  the  man  who  nine  years  before  stood  sadly 
in  the  streets  of  San  Francisco,  discredited,  destitute, 
well  nigh  friendless  and  alone. 

Halleck  himself,  as  we  know,  was  in  San  Francisco 
at  that  time.  Hooker,  recently  trounced  on  the  Rap- 
pahannock  and  later  tricked  by  Lee,  was  also  then 
prominent  in  California  circles,  and  presumably  con 
versant  with  the  circumstances  connected  with  Grant's 
resignation.  And  as  for  the  men  who  had  compassed 
and  compelled  that  resignation  from  the  regiment  Grant 
had  grown  to  love — though  not  as  he  loved  wife  and 
children  at  home — where  were  they?  No  man  who 
ever  knew  Buchanan  could  accuse  him  of  malignity. 
He  had  looked  upon  his  junior  with  a  soldier's  eye 
that  liked  not  the  stern  task  he  had  in  hand.  He  had 
done  simply  that  which  he  conceived  to  be  a  duty  in 
ridding  the  service  of  a  man  who  would  neither  come 
up  to  his  standard  as  to  soldiership,  nor  control  at  all 
times  a  desire  to  drink.  Bonneville,  the  aging  colonel, 
now  in  '63  was  serving  as  commander  of  the  barracks 
at  St.  Louis,  and  never  rose  to  higher  grade.  Buchanan, 
"  Old  Buck/'  as  his  admiring  juniors  dared  to  call  him, 
still  the  picture  of  the  soldier  and  the  gentleman,  had 
commanded  the  regular  brigade  through  the  battles  in 
16  241 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Virginia,  had  been  appointed  brigadier-general  of  volun 
teers  in  November,  '62,  but  the  Senate  said  "  No,"  and  the 
appointment  lapsed  with  the  4th  of  March.  Like  Bonne- 
ville,  Buchanan  then  accepted  duty  at  the  rear,  until  in 
'64  he  became  colonel  of  infantry  and  joined  his  regi 
ment  in  New  Orleans. 

It  may  be  confidently  declared  that  with  Buchanan's 
humiliation  at  the  hands  of  the  Senate  Grant  had  noth 
ing  whatever  to  do.  That  friends  of  his,  still  rankling 
over  the  past,  may  have  sought  revenge  by  defeating 
the  richly-deserved  promotion  of  Buchanan,  is  some 
thing  of  which  Grant  probably  knew  nothing.  It  was 
not  in  him  to  injure  a  deserving  man.  It  was  in  him 
to  work  and  work  hard  later  for  the  restoration  to  com 
mand  of  men  like  McClellan,  who  had  injured  him — of 
Buell,  who  had  slighted  and  belittled  him. 

More  than  one  officer  had  said  or  written  of  Grant 
before  Vicksburg  that  which  later  he  totally  forgot  until 
most  unpleasantly  reminded.  The  Damon  and  Pythias 
attitude  in  which  Grant  and  Sherman  ever  appeared, 
had  stirred  envious  souls  to  recollection  of  something 
written  by  Sherman  in  '62 — something  to  the  effect 
that  "  had  Charley  Smith  been  spared  to  us  Grant  would 
never  have  been  heard  of/'  something  which  in  the 
light  of  later  events  Sherman  thought  he  never  could 
have  written,  and  said  so.  Whereupon,  as  the  word  of 
an  officer  who  had  been  drawn  into  the  controversy 
stood  disputed,  it  seemed  necessary  to  publish  a  photo 
graph  of  Sherman's  own  letter.  After  all  it  only  said 
that  which  Grant  himself  had  said  and  felt  as  to  Charles 
F.  Smith.  Both  Grant  and  Sherman  honored  and  looked 
up  to  their  old  commandant  as  the  finest  soldier  of  their 
day.  Grant  ever  felt  embarrassment  in  sending  Smith 
orders  of  any  kind,  and,  as  he  says,  would  have  served 
Smith  as  loyally  as  Smith  ever  served  him.  If  any  man 
thought  to  break  or  even  strain  the  bonds  that  united 
Grant  and  Sherman  by  the  publication  of  that  character- 

242 


GRANT  IN  THE  HOUR  OF  TRIUMPH 

istic  statement,  great  must  have  been  his  disappoint 
ment.  Grant  was  too  magnanimous  and  Sherman  too 
genuine.  If  anything  it  only  served  to  weld  the  friend 
ship. 

The  conquest  of  Vicksburg  and  the  surrender  of 
Pemberton's  army  had  made  Grant  the  greatest  of  our 
generals  in  the  eyes  of  the  nation,  and  put  an  end  for 
many  moons  to  the  clamor  at  his  expense.  McClernand, 
to  be  sure,  fought  hard  in  public  and  in  private  for  his 
own  restoration,  and  for  an  "  investigation  "  as  to  Grant, 
but  the  President  had  to  deny  them  both.  In  spite  of 
the  fact  that  McClernand  had  still  a  strong  following 
at  home — a  host  of  honest  people  who  had  known  him 
long  years,  believed  in  him  and  honored  him — there 
were  too  many  million  people  by  that  time  who  could 
see  nothing  but  Grant.  The  McClernand  cry  against 
him,  therefore,  was  but  a  mote  in  the  broad  sunshine 
of  popular  acclaim.  For  long  weeks  the  modest  victor 
could  bask,  if  he  chose,  in  public  adulation,  but  he  did 
not  so  choose.  Telegrams,  letters  and  tributes  rained 
upon  him,  all  expressive  of  praise  and  congratulation. 
Grant  read,  put  them  in  his  pigeon  holes — there  was  no 
longer  room  in  his  over-stuffed  pockets,  the  usual  re 
ceptacle — smoked  and  simply  said  "  thank  you  "  or  noth 
ing.  He  could  not  begin  to  answer  the  letters,  neither 
could  his  staff.  He  had,  too,  the  delighted  missives  from 
the  wife  and  children  whom,  all  save  adventurous  Fred, 
he  had  earlier  sent  up  stream  again.  Fred  had  managed, 
to  the  father's  humorous  delight,  to  pick  up  a  mount 
at  Bruinsburg — he  and  Mr.  Dana  sharing  a  venerable 
pair  of  carriage  horses  the  night  of  the  landing — and 
to  accompany  the  staff  throughout  the  campaign.  "  He 
looked  out  for  himself/'  wrote  the  General,  later,  for 
the  father  had  no  time  to  give  to  him,  and  as  other 
chroniclers  have  said,  he  was  very  much  in  evidence  for 
a  fourteen-year-old,  and  sometimes  as  much  in  the 
way.  All  the  same  the  soldiers,  as  they  expressed  it, 

243 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

"  took  a  shine "  to  the  lad,  whose  face  was  ever  as 
cheery  and  smiling  as  by  that  time  the  father's  was  grim 
and  set. 

For  a  few  weeks  after  the  great  surrender  Grant  and 
his  staff  were  occupying  quarters  in  the  city.  The  Gen 
eral,  with  Rawlins  and  Wilson,  moved  in  as  not  un 
welcome  guests  at  the  commodious  home  of  a  planter 
whose  wife  had  been  suspected  of  Union  sentiments 
throughout  the  siege.  For  some  reason  the  Confederate 
commander,  General  Pemberton,  whom  we  saw  at  San 
Cosme  coming  with  Worth's  compliments  to  Grant,  had 
seen  fit  to  assume  toward  his  conqueror  a  cold  and  re 
pellent  manner  which  excited  in  Grant  rather  more 
amusement  than  it  did  annoyance.  Pemberton,  on  July 
3rd,  had  requested  the  appointment  of  a  commission 
to  arrange  terms  of  capitulation,  adding  the  customary 
platitude  about  a  desire  to  avoid  unnecessary  effusion  of 
blood.  Grant  sent  his  simple  yet  uncompromising  re 
sponse  to  the  effect  that  commissions  were  unnecessary, 
and  unconditional  surrender  all  that  was  required.  So 
a  second  time  these  "  unchivalric,"  yet  entirely  proper 
terms  were  dealt  out  to  the  vanquished.  Grant  and 
Pemberton  met  between  the  lines  and  under  the  tree 
which  later  speedily  was  whittled  to  death.  Grant  was 
entirely  at  his  ease,  in  no  wise  exultant  or  superior. 
Very  possibly  the  utterly  matter-of-fact  manner  which 
seemed  to  say,  "  this  is  all  just  as  I  planned  and  ex 
pected,"  may  have  been  a  cause  of  irritation  to  Pem 
berton,  for  when  Grant  and  his  staff  on  a  very  hot  day 
rode  in  and  dismounted  at  Pemberton's  headquarters, 
the  Southern  general  and  his  officers  maintained  their 
haughty  and  distant  attitudes,  offered  not  even  a  chair 
or  a  glass  of  water  to  the  tired  and  thirsty  visitors,  and 
so  were  allowed  to  depart  with  empty  wallets.  Two  or 
three  young  West  Pointers  in  Confederate  gray,  how 
ever,  came  forward  to  shake  hands  with  Wilson  and 

244 


GRANT  IN  THE  HOUR  OF  TRIUMPH 

were  presented  to  Grant,  who  welcomed  them  sincerely 
and  kindly.  When  they  left  to  rejoin  their  dejected 
comrades  their  worn  haversacks  were  bulging  with  all 
the  good  things  the  headquarters'  mess  afforded. 

And  just  as  soon  as  the  veterans  of  Vicksburg's 
defense,  having  surrendered  arms,  flags  and  equipments, 
had  marched  away  (unfortunately  permitted  to  go  and 
fight  as  much  more  as  it  pleased  them — the  one  serious 
error  of  Grant's  management  of  the  surrender)  Julia 
Dent  reappeared  at  the  far  front,  and  took  up  her  abode 
with  her  conquering  husband  in  a  house  full  of  at 
tractive  women,  in  the  midst  of  a  new-budding 
romance.  The  most  beautiful  and  attractive  of  the  oc 
cupants  was  the  governess  of  the  planters'  daughters, 
a  New  England  girl  of  excellent  family,  who  became 
at  once  the  object  of  unstinted  admiration  and  of  some 
undesired  attentions.  The  former  were  genuine  and 
lasting,  the  latter  were  presently  routed  and  replaced 
by  devotions  as  sincere  as  was  the  man.  Rawlins,  the 
hard-headed,  pragmatical  chief  of  staff,  who  had  buried 
his  wife  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  had  fallen  promptly, 
deeply  and  devotedly  in  love,  and  to  the  sympathetic 
interest  of  General  and  Mrs.  Grant,  began  his  deter 
mined  wooing.  It  is  recorded  of  this  uncompromising 
and  incomparable  aide  that  he  who  had  been  the  most 
absorbed  and  austere  of  men,  became  in  this  presence 
the  gentlest  and  least  aggressive.  Long  years  of  his 
vehement  life  Rawlins,  when  aroused,  had  been  ac 
customed  to  vent  his  views  in  hair-raising  expletives. 
The  lady  was  from  the  land  of  steady  habits  where 
long  years  of  the  pillory  had  done  much  to  banish  "  pro 
fane  swearing,"  and  Rawlins,  whose  language  hitherto 
had  known  no  trammel,  even  in  the  presence  of  him  who 
swore  not  at  all,  his  soft-spoken  chief,  registered  his 
vow  to  break  himself  of  the  habit  of  a  lifetime,  and  a 
mighty  struggle  did  he  have  with  himself;  and  hereon 

245 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

is  where  that  selfsame  chief  was  stronger  than  his 
mentor.  Habits  as  deeply  rooted  as  Rawlins's  blasphemy 
Grant  could  and  did  conquer  and  put  aside  without  so 
much  as  a  sign  of  a  struggle. 

But  the  love  affair  thus  born  in  Vicksburg  went  on 
to  blissful  consummation.  A  joyous  wedding  was  that 
to  which  the  staff  was  bidden  in  December  following, 
and  a  noble  union  was  that  which  ensued  and  lasted 
until  that  "  most  untimely  taking  off  "  which  later  robbed 
Grant  of  his  own  war  secretary  and  his  loyal,  devoted 
and  indispensable  friend. 


CHAPTER  XXV 
WHAT  FOLLOWED  VICKSBURG 

FIRST  came  weeks  of  reports,  of  letters  and  con 
gratulations,  of  calls,  callers,  gifts  and  givers.  Many 
letters  had  to  be  answered  and  there  was  not  time  in 
which  to  do  it.  Many  calls  had  to  be  returned,  and  it 
would  have  been  better  had  some  of  them — notably  that 
of  Banks  from  New  Orleans — been  left  until  the  war 
was  over.  Many  of  the  gifts  might  far  better  have 
been  returned,  but  were  not.  He  who  never  had  an 
"  ulterior  motive  "  could  not  see  it  in  another,  and  then, 
while  he  had  little  use  for  many  things  that  were  sent 
him  except  such  as  cigars  and  saddlery,  they  were  a 
delight  to  Julia  Dent,  who,  like  Alice  in  Wonderland, 
had  an  almost  childish  pleasure  in  an  "  unbirthday  gift." 
There  were  gifts  that  set  Rawlins's  nerves  on  edge  in 
his  effort  not  to  swear.  There  were  even  some  which 
he  urged  the  General  to  decline  outright ;  whereat  Grant 
looked  gravely,  keenly,  at  the  flushed  and  bearded  face, 
puffed  thoughtfully  a  moment,  turned  and  went  silently 
away.  Wilson  sometimes  was  called  in  by  Rawlins  to 
second  the  urgings  of  the  chief-of-staff,  but  while  in 
matters  military,  and  even  in  some  matters  personal 
to  himself,  the  General  heeded  what  those  men  had  to 
say,  some  influence  more  powerful  than  theirs  actuated 
Grant  to  the  last  in  that  matter  of  accepting  gifts. 
Bribes  they  never  were,  because  bribed  he  could  not 
be ;  but  as  bribes,  no  doubt,  a  number  were  sent,  and  the 
effect  upon  the  public  mind  in  later  years  a  thousand 
times  outweighed  their  value. 

But  the  weeks  that  followed  Pemberton's  surrender 
were  very  happy  ones  to  Grant,  and  full  of  bliss  and 
triumph  to  his  wife.  The  contrast  between  her  state 

247 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

as  consort  of  the  conqueror  of  the  West,  the  chief  of 
the  great  army  and  department  of  the  Mississippi, 
courted  and  flattered  on  every  side,  and  the  humility 
of  their  lot  when  he  was  grubbing  at  "  Hardscrabble  " 
or  clerking  at  Galena,  was  enough  to  turn  many  a  head, 
though  it  never  seemed  to  disturb  his.  Military  critics 
claim  to  see  a  perceptible  falling  off  in  the  conduct  of 
affairs  for  a  month  or  two  after  Vicksburg.  Certain 
it  is  that  much  that  might  have  been  done  was  not  done, 
but  for  most  of  this  Halleck,  not  Grant,  was  responsible. 
It  was  in  no  wise  the  fault  of  Grant,  for  instance,  that 
Lee  was  able  to  take  Longstreet  and  his  famous  corps 
from  under  the  aquiline  nose  of  Meade,  and  send  him 
around  by  rail  to  northwestern  Georgia,  there  to  join 
Bragg  and  enable  him  to  fall  upon  Rosecrans  and  ham 
mer  him  at  Chickamauga,  that  terrific  battle  which  well- 
nigh  neutralized  the  summer  victories,  and  which  re 
stored  the  credit  and  confidence  of  the  South.  With 
Stanton's  elaborate  system  of  spies  and  secret  service  it 
is  remarkable  indeed  that  one-third  of  Lee's  army  could 
march  away  from  the  Rapidan  unguessed  by  any  one 
at  Washington.  Yet  even  this  might  not  have  harmed 
"  Old  Rosy  "  had  he  been  reinforced  from  the  West 
as  Bragg  was  from  the  East  The  Army  of  the  Missis 
sippi  broke  up  after  Vicksburg.  The  Thirteenth  Corps 
were  floated  down  to  aid  Banks  in  Louisiana.  Sherman 
had  been  sent  to  whip  Johnston  out  of  Mississippi  and 
came  back  without  having  done  it — saying  his  men  were 
tired  and  Johnston  too  nimble.  McPherson,  with  the 
Seventeenth  Corps,  was  holding  the  line  of  the  Mis 
sissippi  as  far  down  as  Natchez.  A  strong  division  had 
been  detached  to  aid  Steele  in  Arkansas,  and  another 
to  Burnside  in  far  east  Tennessee,  and  Sherman's 
splendid  corps  might  well  have  been  sent  up  to  Memphis 
and  then  shipped  to  Chattanooga  by  rail,  and  with  this 
aid  from  their  old  rivals  of  the  Tennessee  the  chances 
are  that  the  men  of  the  Cumberland  could  have  beaten 

248 


WHAT  FOLLOWED  VICKSBURG 

Bragg,  even  had  he  been  reinforced  more  heavily  than 
he  was,  both  by  Longstreet  and  by  quite  a  number  of 
Pemberton's  late  defenders  of  Vicksburg. 

This,  however,  was  not  urged  upon  Washington  by 
Grant,  nor  was  he  much  impressed  by  the  arguments  in 
favor  of  it,  advanced  principally  by  his  youngest,  yet 
one  of  his  ablest  counsellors,  Wilson.  Ever  since  Don- 
elson  there  had  been  some  intangible,  indefinable  un 
easiness  between  those  two  armies,  the  Tennessee  and 
the  Ohio.  Even  after  their  welding  at  Shiloh,  their 
merging  before  Corinth,  that  feeling  existed.  The  men 
of  Donelson  resented  it  that  their  leader  should  be 
"  sidetracked  "  by  any  man  from  the  Army  of  the  Ohio 
— even  the  grave,  dignified  and  honored  soldier  whom 
the  men  of  Mill  Springs  and  their  comrades  already 
hailed  as  "  Old  Pap  "  Thomas.  It  had  stung  the  Ten 
nessee  to  note  how  much  Halleck  exalted  Thomas  at 
the  expense  of  Grant,  and  it  was  probably  the  founda 
tion  of  the  deplorable  coldness  which  little  by  little  de 
veloped  between  Grant  and  Thomas — but  of  that  here 
after. 

At  the  time  when  this  move  to  aid  Rosecrans  was 
proposed  to  Grant,  Sherman  had  been  for  some  days 
back  from  his  dusty  marchings  to  and  fro;  his  men 
were  rested,  and  most  of  them  eager  to  be  at  the  throat 
or  heels  of  the  enemy.  But  Rosecrans,  ignorant  of  the 
preparations  being  made  to  receive  him  south  of  the 
Tennessee,  was  in  the  full  flood  of  a  skilful  campaign 
of  manoeuvres.  The  papers  were  predicting  all  manner 
of  success  and  triumph,  and  it  may  be  that  Grant  be 
lieved  that,  as  the  Army  of  the  Tennessee  had  absorbed 
most  of  the  glory  thus  far,  and  the  old  Army  of  the 
Ohio,  now  known  as  the  Army  of  the  Cumberland,  was 
really  launched  on  an  independent  campaign  with 
promise  of  a  crowning  victory,  it  would  only  spoil  it 
all  to  interject  the  aid  of  their  rivals.  It  is  more  than 
possible  that  at  this  stage  of  the  game  Rosecrans  would 

249 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

have  been  embarrassed  by  the  coming  of  Sherman,  and 
might  have  been  exasperated. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  Grant  did  not  urge  the  move.  On 
the  contrary,  much  to  the  disgust  of  Rawlins,  he  de 
cided  that  this  was  a  favorable  time  to  visit  the  lower 
sections  of  his  military  domain,  and  to  return  the  call 
of  Banks.  With  this  in  view  he  took  steamer  for 
New  Orleans,  accompanied  by  his  personal  staff,  leav 
ing  Rawlins  to  finish  the  reports  of  the  campaign,  to 
"  run  "  the  routine  of  the  great  command  during  his 
absence,  and  for  the  time  being  Grant  disappeared  from 
the  view  of  his  faithful  friends  at  headquarters.  Just 
as  Rawlins  dreaded,  no  good  whatever  and  not  a  little 
harm  resulted. 

Galloping  to  a  review  at  Carrollton,  above  New 
Orleans,  Grant's  borrowed  horse  slipped,  fell  and 
crushed  his  rider's  leg  beneath  him.  Grant  went  on 
crutches  for  nearly  ninety  days  and  no  end  of  calumny 
was  again  started.  Given  a  reputation  for  having  once 
indulged  in  drink  and  anything  will  revive  it.  It  would 
seem  that  in  many  a  mind  there  is  nothing  so  impossible, 
if  not  unforgivable,  to  man  as  ability  to  drop  the  vice  at 
will. 

Fortunately  at  this  juncture  Rawlins  himself  had  car 
ried  to  Washington  the  priceless  records  of  the  Vicks- 
burg  campaign,  had  been  received  and  heard  with 
marked  respect  and  consideration  by  the  President,  by 
Halleck,  and  even  by  tempestuous  Stanton.  (It  would 
have  been  a  case  of  Greek  meet  Greek  had  the  latter 
taken  occasion  to  "turn  loose  "  on  Rawlins,  as  he  so 
often  did  on  others.)  But  all  that  Rawlins  had  to  tell  of 
the  campaign  and  of  the  personal  energy  and  activity  of 
his  chief  came  in  good  time.  A  story  was  current  in  the 
fall  of  '63,  and  revived  with  circumstantial  detail  a  year 
later,  to  the  effect  that  seeing  his  General  yielding  on 
a  certain  occasion  in  June,  '63,  to  the  alleged  weakness 
of  his  Galena  days,  Rawlins  had  written  a  strenuous 

250 


WHAT  FOLLOWED  VICKSBURG 

letter,  telling  Grant  in  so  many  words  that  he  could  not 
bear  to  see  the  splendid  powers  of  his  chief  clogged  or 
clouded  by  liquor,  that  he  had  noticed  that  very  night — 
it  was  written  at  one  A.M. — that  even  in  the  presence 
of  "the  eyes  of  the  Government,"  Mr.  Dana,  Grant's 
staff  officers  were  drinking  and  inviting  their  chief  to 
join.  Moreover  there  were  indications  which  prompted 
him,  Rawlins,  to  believe  that  Grant  had  yielded.  Pos 
sibly  it  was  this  story  which  McClernand  sought  to  stir ; 
at  all  events  it  was  told  that  Rawlins  had  said  in  so 
many  words  that  the  next  time  these  symptoms  appeared 
he  would  tender  his  instant  resignation  and  go  home. 
It  is  recorded  that  in  his  wrath  on  the  occasion  referred 
to,  Rawlins  impounded  every  bottle  he  could  find  about 
headquarters,  even  a  basket  of  champagne  kept  to  cele 
brate  the  surrender  of  Vicksburg  when  it  came,  and 
smashed  them  before  the  eyes  of  their  owners.  It  was 
a  noble  letter,  but  it  was  hardly  a  noble  motive  which 
prompted  its  publication  in'  full  in  the  memoirs  of  an 
unsuccessful  general  of  the  eastern  army. 

Unlike  Sherman's  missive  as  to  what  might  ever 
have  been  heard  of  Grant  and  himself  had  Charles  F. 
Smith  been  spared  to  us,  this  was  not  a  photographic 
copy,  nor  was  the  original  produced,  but  all  the  same  it 
bore  tremendous  weight  and  was  probably  authentic ; 
it  certainly  had  all  the  "  earmarks  "  of  Rawlins's  style. 
Nevertheless  Wilson  and  others  who  were  with  Grant 
throughout  the  campaign  aver  that  there  was  precious 
little  on  which  to  base  the  belief  that  Grant  had  been 
drinking  either  before  or  after  the  occurrence  in 
question. 

But  the  luckless  fall  of  that  horse  at  Carrollton  gave 
rise  to  all  manner  of  gossip,  eagerly  believed  and  cir 
culated  wherever  Grant's  would-be  rivals  held  sway. 
There  were  other  disturbing  tales  abroad,  of  which 
Rawlins  heard  not  a  little  and  Grant  had  apparently 
heard  not  at  all,  nor  heeded  if  he  heard.  He  long  since 

251 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

had  learned  the  futility  of  combating  newspaper 
slander,  and  had  come  to  accepting  all  such  as  the  in 
evitable  accompaniment  of  success. 

One  tale  that  hurt  him  to  the  extent  of  writing  to 
Mr.  Washburne,  was  that  of  capturing  and  returning 
to  their  masters  the  fugitive  slaves  who  had  sought  his 
lines  for  protection  after  Donelson.  .Now  came  others 
which  sought  to  implicate  him  in  cotton  speculation. 
Of  course  there  had  been  abundant  opportunity,  for  he 
controlled  the  situation,  and  to  officers  eager  to  ac 
cumulate  wealth  the  temptation  was  greater  even  than 
the  opportunity. 

Here  in  all  the  country  about  Vicksburg  lay  thou 
sands  of  bales  of  the  now  almost  priceless  staple,  and 
presently  by  every  boat  came  eager  would-be  investors, 
some  with  and  some  without  authority  of  the  War  De 
partment.  To  insure  his  command  against  the  inevitable 
demoralization  which  would  result  from  such  a  traffic, 
Grant  had  issued  positive  orders  against  it.  He  could 
have  reaped  a  fortune  of  one  hundred  thousand  dollars 
in  thirty  days  had  he  seen  fit  to  lend  himself,  or  the 
power  of  his  name,  to  such  a  scheme,  but  he  would  have 
none  of  it. 

Now,  it  is  not  to  be  imagined  for  a  moment  that  the 
eyes  of  so  keen  a  money-maker  as  Jesse  Grant  had  been 
blind  to  this  opportunity,  or  that,  had  he  retained  the  old 
dominion  over  his  son  which  in  '39  had  prompted  the 
latter  to  "  think  so  too  if  he  did,"  the  elder  would  have 
been  among  the  foremost  seekers  after  cotton ;  but  Jesse, 
the  father,  had  lost  that  domination,  and  he  knew  it. 
He  would  not  spend  a  cent  to  get  his  son  the  horse  and 
uniform  he  needed  as  colonel  of  the  Twenty-first 
Illinois,  yet  within  six  months  was  importuning  "  Gen 
eral  "  Grant,  commanding  at  Cairo,  to  help  him  get  a 
contract  for  making  harness  for  the  artillery  and  trans 
port.  He  had  helped  the  son  not  one  cent's  worth  to 
his  high  position,  but  was  speedily  writing  him  to  give 

252 


WHAT  FOLLOWED  VICKSBURG 

staff  appointments  to  one  Foley,  then  to  "  Al  Griffith  " 
and  later  to  a  Mr.  Nixon.  Failing  in  these  he  wrote 
begging  that  a  pass  to  go  South,  obviously  for  purposes 
of  speculation,  be  given  to  a  Mr.  Leathers,  and  in  all 
these  and  in  kindred  appeals  the  son  for  good  and 
sufficient  reasons  had  stood  out  against  him.  Finally,  as 
has  been  pointed  out,  the  General  had  found  himself 
compelled  to  write  bidding  his  father,  in  no  uncertain 
terms,  to  cease  meddling  in  military  affairs.  "  You  are 
so  imprudent  that  I  dare  not  trust  you  with  them" 
(particulars  of  recent  events).  "  I  have  not  an  enemy 
in  the  world  who  has  done  me  so  much  injury  as  you 
have  in  your  efforts  in  my  defense.  .  .  .  For  the 
future  keep  quiet  on  this  subject." 

It  was  useless  to  try  to  "  work  "  Ulysses,  but  there 
were  other  ways  of  attaining  the  object,  and  hardly 
had  the  smoke  of  the  last  battle  about  Vicksburg  cleared 
away  when  there  came  a  kinsman  of  the  commanding 
general,  and  with  a  permit  from  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury.  The  canny  Grants  had  reckoned  that  Mr. 
Salmon  P.  Chase,  of  Ohio,  would  be  loath  to  deny  the 
request  of  a  near  relative  of  Ohio's  greatest  soldier, 
now  the  central  figure  of  the  war.  Grant,  the  general, 
when  confronted  with  this  officially  authorized  arrival, 
smoked  and  said  nothing.  If  the  administration  saw  fit 
to  do  thus  and  so,  it  was  not  for  him  to  protest.  But 
Rawlins  reasoned  otherwise,  and,  never  waiting  to  con 
sult  his  chief,  wrote  a  peremptory  order  banishing  the 
cotton  buyer  from  the  lines,  and  when  Grant  checked  it 
as  being  harsh  and  unnecessary,  where  a  word  would  be 
sufficient,  the  chief-of-staff  burst  into  a  fury  of  wrath 
and  blasphemy.  The  scene  and  sequel  are  best  de 
scribed  in  the  words  of  General  Wilson  himself — 
probably  the  only  eye  and  ear  witness. 

"  This  was  more  than  the  rugged  and  determined  chief- 
of-staff  could  stand,  and,  evidently  fearing  that  it  meant  a 
relaxation  of  discipline,  if  not  a  defeat  of  justice,  he  burst 

253 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

forth  perhaps  unconsciously  with  a  volley  of  oaths,  followed 
by  the  declaration  that  if  he  were  the  commanding  general 
of  the  department,  and  any  kinsman  of  his  dared  to  come 
within  the  limits  and  violate  one  of  its  important  standing 
orders,  he  would  arrest  him,  march  him  out  and  hang  him  to 
the  highest  tree  within  five  miles  of  camp. 

"  Thereupon,  without  waiting  to  note  the  effect  of  his  sten 
torian  speech,  he  turned  about  and,  re-entering  his  own  office, 
violently  slammed  the  door  behind  him. 

"  It  was  an  embarrassing  episode — the  only  one  of  the  kind 
I  had  ever  witnessed — and  as  the  punctuation  of  his  remarks 
was  both  profane  and  disrespectful,  I  followed  him  and  said : 

" '  Rawlins,  that  won't  do.  You  have  used  language  in  the 
General's  presence  that  was  both  insubordinate  and  inexcusable, 
and  you  should  not  only  withdraw  it,  but  apologize  for  it.' 

"  Without  a  moment's  hesitation  he  replied :  '  You  are 
right.  I  am  already  ashamed  of  myself  for  losing  my  temper. 
Come  with  me/  And  walking  back  into  the  General's  presence, 
he  said,  in  his  deep,  sonorous  voice:  'General,  I  have  just 
used  rough  and  violent  language  in  your  presence  which  I 
should  not  have  used,  and  I  not  only  want  to  withdraw  it, 
but  to  humbly  beg  your  pardon  for  it.' 

"  Then  with  a  pause  and  a  blush  he  added :  '  The  fact  is, 
General,  when  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  ladies  at  our 
headquarters  I  resolved  to  give  up  the  use  of  profane  language, 
and  blankety  blank  my  soul  if  I  didn't  think  I  had  done  it.' 

"  At  this  naive  expression  Grant's  face  lightened  with  a 
smile  and  he  replied :  '  That's  all  right,  Rawlins,  I  understand. 
You  were  not  cursing,  but,  like  Wilson's  friend,  "  simply  ex 
pressing  your  intense  vehemence  on  the  subject  matter.3" 

"  It  is  needless  to  add  that  the  incident  passed  off  to  the 
satisfaction  of  all  concerned.  The  order  was  suspended,  but 
discipline  was  vindicated  by  a  quiet  intimation  on  the  part  of 
the  General  that  the  intruder's  health  would  be  improved  by 
an  early  return  to  the  North,  and  he  went  the  next  day." 

And  so  for  a  brief  spell  the  family  efforts  to  "fatten 
at  the  public  crib,"  as  the  papers  put  it,  through  their 
connection  with  their  one  famous  member,  received 
temporary  check.  But  the  time  was  to  come  when,  in 
added  numbers  and  potent  influence,  they  returned  to 
the  charge.  But  that  was  after  Grant  quit  the  tented 
field  for  the  White  House. 

Hardly  had  the  General  commanding  returned  to 
254 


WHAT  FOLLOWED  VICKSBURG 

Vicksburg  and  begun  to  hobble  about  on  his  crutches 
when  the  nation  was  stunned  by  the  news  of  Chicka- 
mauga.  Dana  was  with  Rosecrans  at  the  time,  and  his 
vivid  pen-picture  of  the  crushing  effect  upon  Rosecrans, 
of  the  possible  result  to  Burnside,  now  in  peril  at  Knox- 
ville,  of  the  overthrow  of  McCook  and  Crittenden, 
whose  ill  fortune  had  become  proverbial,  and  finally  of 
the  indomitable  stand  of  Thomas,  led  to  most  important 
measures  on  the  part  of  the  administration.  As  the  only 
successful  commanding  general  of  the  four  armies  in 
the  West,  Grant  was  given  supreme  control,  and  sum 
moned  to  oust  Bragg  from  his  triumphant  perch  on 
the  heights  overlooking  Chattanooga,  where,  grim,  de 
fiant,  destitute  of  forage  and  short  of  rations,  the  Army 
of  the  Cumberland  held  to  its  fortified  lines. 

And  so,  in  mid  October,  journeying,  as  required  by 
his  orders,  via  Cairo  and  Indianapolis,  Grant,  with  his 
staff,  arrived  at  the  capital  of  the  Hoosier  State,  and 
found  explanation  of  the  roundabout  route  in  the  per 
son  of  Mr.  Secretary  Stanton,  who  had  come  all  that 
way  to  meet  and  take  personal  measure  of  the  man  of 
the  Mississippi.  Stanton  boarded  the  car,  promptly 
grasped  Dr.  Kittoe,  staff  surgeon,  by  the  hand,  confident 
as  ever  in  the  infallibility  of  his  judgment,  and  im 
pulsively  exclaimed :  "  How  do  you  do,  General  Grant  ? 
I  recognize  you  from  your  pictures." 

And  so  met  the  two  men  who  henceforth  to  the  end 
of  the  war  were  to  be  the  dominant  factors — Stanton 
at  the  War  Department,  Grant  at  the  front. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 
GRANT  AND  THOMAS 

To  Louisville  together  journeyed  Stanton  and  Grant, 
sitting  apart  from  the  staff,  and  conferring  gravely  upon 
the  situation.  At  Louisville  they  parted,  Stanton  to 
return  to  his  duties  at  the  Department  of  War,  Grant  to 
hasten  southward,  each  rather  relieved  to  get  away  from 
the  other.  Acting  together  loyally  until  after  Appo- 
mattox,  Stanton  backing  Grant,  and  Grant  subordinately 
conferring  with  Stanton,  there  was  never  between  them 
any  pretense  of  personal  friendship.  In  the  perform 
ance  of  what  he  conceived  to  be  his  public  duty,  Stanton 
had  given  his  assent  in  the  past  to  measures  which  had 
humiliated  and  reflected  upon  Grant — especially  after 
Shiloh — and  Grant  had  never  forgotten  it,  but  had  de 
liberately  shaken  himself  free  of  all  possible  hindrance 
from  the  Halleck-Stanton  influence  when  he  "  cut 
loose  "  at  Bruinsburg  and  launched  out  for  Jackson. 
Each  had  now  learned  to  respect  the  ability  and  the 
patriotic  purpose  of  the  other,  and,  for  the  sake  of  the 
common  cause  so  dear  to  both,  their  official  acts  were 
thereafter  to  be  in  concert.  But  this  did  not  prevent 
Stanton  from  keeping  his  eyes  and  ears  open,  his  spies 
and  sycophants  alert,  for  anything  amiss  about  Grant, 
his  associates  and  his  habits ;  nor  did  it  make  amends 
in  Grant's  eyes  for  words  and  deeds  to  his  detriment 
in  the  past;  in  fact  it  made  him  watchful,  if  not  ex 
pectant,  of  new  and  similar  demonstrations  in  the 
future. 

But  in  going  Stanton  left  to  Grant  full  authority 
to  manage  his  now  immense  command  practically  in 
his  own  way.  This  included  the  relief  of  Rosecrans 
from  duty  at  the  head  of  the  Army  of  the  Cumberland, 

256 


GRANT  AND  THOMAS 

the  assignment  thereto  of  George  H.  Thomas  and  the 
promotion  of  Sherman  to  the  command  vacated  by 
Grant.  The  wires  that  very  day  bore  to  Thomas  the 
tidings  of  his  new  duties,  with  Grant's  injunction  to 
hold  Chattanooga  at  all  hazards,  and  in  thrilling  words 
came  Thomas's  spirited  answer  to  Grant :  "  We  will 
hold  the  town  till  we  starve." 

And  then,  all  breathing  more  freely  after  the  de 
parture  of  Mr.  Stanton,  Grant,  with  two  or  three  of  his 
chosen,  scandalized  Rawlins  by  going  to  the  theatre. 
Rawlins  would  have  had  out  a  special  train  and  set 
forth  that  very  night  to  join  Thomas  at  the  imperilled 
Gateway  of  the  Gods. 

Accompanied  now  only  by  his  military  family,  Mrs. 
Grant  and  the  children  having  been  "  detached "  at 
Cairo  and  sent  to  safe  refuge,  while  the  husband  and 
father  returned  to  the  front,  Grant  arrived  two  days 
later  at  Stevenson,  beyond  which  the  railway  could  not 
carry  him.  Eastward  the  Tennessee  was  lined  along 
the  south  bank  by  sharpshooters  in  butternut  or  gray, 
and  communication  with  Chattanooga  was  by  steep  and 
devious  routes  over  the  high  ridges  and  plateaus.  Never 
theless,  the  indefatigable  Mr.  Dana  had  ridden  to  meet 
them  and  to  give  Grant  full  information  as  to  conditions 
at  Chattanooga — officers  and  men  hungry  but  plucky, 
horses  and  mules,  more  than  half  of  them  already 
starved  to  death.  There  could  be  no  doubt  of  the  sin 
cerity  of  Dana's  welcome.  He  had  learned  in  the  Vicks- 
burg  campaign  the  true  value  of  Grant,  had  set  him 
higher  in  esteem  than  any  of  his  generals,  had  learned 
to  know  and  believe  in  Rawlins  as  a  "  naturally  born  " 
chief-of-staff,  and  to  regard  Wilson  and  Bowers  as  the 
General's  most  trusted  aides.  He  rejoiced  in  the  War 
Department  order,  with  the  final  issuance  of  which  he 
had  doubtless  had  much  to  do,  assigning  Grant  to  the 
command  of  the  entire  military  division  of  the  Mis 
sissippi,  embracing  the  departments  of  the  Ohio, 
i7  257 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Cumberland  and  Tennessee  and  the  armies  therein  en 
gaged.  He  rejoiced  in  .the  arrival  on  the  Tennessee  of 
Hooker,  with  the  Eleventh  and  Twelfth  Corps  from  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac,  and  the  tidings  that,  far  away  to 
the  West,  Sherman  was  already  in  march  to  join  them. 
It  promised  under  God's  providence  the  final  exclusion 
of  the  battle  flags  of  the  South  from  this  section— 
the  stronghold  of  the  Middle  West.  Taking  Wilson 
with  him,  the  "  eyes  of  the  War  Department "  re 
mounted  at  Stevenson  and  set  out  for  Chattanooga, 
leaving  Grant  and  his  staff  to  make  the  slow  and  pain 
ful  progress  necessitated  by  his  still  serious  injuries. 

But  first  came  interesting  meetings  with  two  former 
rivals — generals  recently  commanding  armies  as  great  as 
his  own,  if  not  greater  and  far  more  conspicuous — and 
the  manner  of  the  two  men,  as  well  as  of  the  meetings, 
is  illustrative  of  the  mental  attitude  of  each.  It  was 
here  at  Stevenson  that  the  famous  and  successful  leader 
of  the  victorious  Army  of  the  Tennessee  met  the  de 
posed  heads  of  the  defeated  armies  of  the  Potomac  and 
Cumberland — Hooker  still  smarting  from  the  stigma 
of  Chancellorsville,  Rosecrans  still  suffering  from  the 
stings  of  Chickamauga. 

It  was  characteristic  of  Hooker  that  he  should  as 
sume  a  superior  and  patronizing  attitude  at  the  outset 
in  the  possible  hope  of  attaining  the  old  ascendency  of 
captain  over  subaltern,  or  the  glory  of  the  headship  of 
the  "  finest  army  on  the  planet "  over  the  "  hayseed  " 
leader  of  those  "hoodlums"  of  the  Tennessee,  which 
descriptives  were  attributed  to  and  certainly  sound  like, 
el  capitan  hermoso,  as  "  Fighting  Joe  "  was  known  in 
Mexico.  Having  in  mind  the  Grant  of  Vancouver, 
Humboldt  and  San  Francisco  days,  and  ignoring  the 
fact  that  he  too  for  a  time  before  the  war  had  been  well 
nigh  as  poor  and  otherwise  quite  as  open  to  criticism  as 
Grant — ignoring,  too,  the  immensity  of  Grant's  later 
services  and  successes,  and  daring  to  ignore  the  fact 

258 


GRANT  AND  THOMAS 

that  Grant  was  now  his  superior  officer  to  whom  it  was 
his  duty  to  show  every  military  deference,  it  pleased 
Hooker  at  Stevenson,  as  it  had  Buell  at  Savannah,  to 
omit  the  prompt  and  soldierly  call  for  the  purpose  of 
"  paying  respects  "  and  reporting  conditions.  The  cus 
tom  in  all  armies  is  as  old  and  as  thoroughly  recognized 
as  that  of  the  salute  to  superior  rank.  But  Hooker  sent 
a  staff  officer  with  the  airy  message  that  he  "  wasn't 
feeling  very  well  and  would  like  to  have  General  Grant 
call  on  him.'9 

That  message  fell  into  the  best  possible  hands  when 
it  was  delivered  to  the  chief-of-staff.  Rawlins  looked 
up  from  his  improvised  desk  and  never  waited  to  hear 
what  his  mild-mannered  chief  might  wish  to  say,  for  if 
Grant  really  believed  that  Hooker  were  ill  he  would  take 
his  crutches  and  set  forth  at  once  to  see  what  he  could 
do  for  him — which  was  the  way  of  the  Army  of  the 
Tennessee.  Rawlins  was  too  quick  for  his  chief ;  Raw 
lins  saw  through  the  artifice  in  an  instant,  and  his 
resonant  voice  informed  the  Potomac- schooled  aide-de 
camp,  and  a  score  of  staff  officers  sitting  about,  that 
"  General  Grant  himself  is  not  very  well  and  will  not 
leave  the  car  to-night.  He  expects  General  Hooker  and 
all  other  generals  who  have  business  with  him  to  call 
at  once  " — a  message  which  opened  the  eyes  of  Hooker 
and  his  staff  to  the  soldier  stuff  there  was  at  Grant's 
headquarters,  and  taught  a  much-needed  lesson. 

And  then  came  Rosecrans  and  a  contrast.  Cor 
diality  toward  the  general  who  had  come  to  supplant, 
and  had  already  relieved,  him  was  not  to  be  expected. 
Rosecrans  had  looked  upon  Grant's  earlier  success  as 
accident,  upon  his  promotion  as  luck,  and  upon  his 
conduct  of  affairs  at  Shiloh  and  later  at  Corinth  and 
luka  as  far  from  sound.  Rosecrans,  so  believing,  had 
so  declared  himself  in  talk  about  the  camp  fires,  and 
it  had  all  in  time  reached  the  ears  of  Grant.  But  after 
Vicksburg  Rosecrans  saw  that  in  the  silent  man  of  the 

259 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Tennessee  there  was  generalship  none  of  them  could 
match,  and,  like  Halleck,  he  surrendered,  though  long 
years  thereafter  that  relief  rankled  and  stung.  Here, 
however,  in  candid  and  soldierly  subordination  Rose- 
crans  reported  to  the  man  he  had  not  seen  since  Corinth 
and  had  been  moved  to  lightly  regard.  Frankly,  courte 
ously  he  was  received,  and  the  two  held  a  long  and  im 
portant  conference.  Rosecrans  was  full  of  information 
as  to  the  country  and  the  opposing  forces,  and  loyally 
gave  it  to  the  new  commander;  then  went  his  north 
ward  way  with  the  respect  and  sympathy  of  those  about 
Grant,  and  the  undoubted  affection  of  his  old  command. 
Each  general  for  the  time  felt  for  the  other  an  access  of 
soldierly  regard,  though  as  it  happened  they  never  had 
been  cordial  friends,  and  later  became  still  further 
estranged. 

But  there  was  yet  to  come  a  meeting  with  the  new 
commander  of  the  Army  of  the  Cumberland — he  who 
twice  had  saved  it  and  who  twice  before,  but  for  per 
sistent  loyalty  to  his  immediate  superior,  might  have 
been  assigned  the  command.  George  H.  Thomas  stood 
waiting  at  Chattanooga  to  receive  his  new  commanding 
general,  and  throughout  the  Army  of  the  Cumberland 
there  was  no  little  talk  and  speculation  as  to  what  that 
reception  might  be. 

Ever  since  Donelson,  as  has  been  said,  there  had 
been  this  feeling  between  the  Army  of  the  Tennessee 
and  that  of  the  Cumberland.  Ever  since  Shiloh  there 
had  been  constraint  between  Grant  and  Thomas.  Their 
common  superior,  Halleck,  had  humiliated  the  former 
in  favor  of  the  latter.  They  had  not  met  or  served  to 
gether  since  the  Mexican  war  until  Halleck's  cautious 
forward  crawl  upon  Corinth,  and  when  Thomas  here 
encountered  Grant  the  latter  was  under  a  cloud  mainly 
of  Halleck's  creation — a  cloud  which  seemed  to  en 
velop  and  hide  him  from  the  eyes  of  all  save  the  ever 
faithful  Sherman.  No  general  of  Buell's  army,  so  far 

260 


GRANT  AND  THOMAS 

as  is  known,  sought  out  Grant  to  say  how  much  he 
regretted  or  disapproved  the  position  of  practical  sur 
veillance  to  which  he  had  been  relegated.  It  would  have 
been  an  improper  and  unsoldierly  act,  and  the  Army 
of  the  Ohio,  later  of  the  Cumberland,  was  too  well 
taught  and  disciplined.  Moreover,  what  did  they  know 
of  Grant  and  Grant's  habits  save  what  they  had  read 
and  heard  and  could  so  readily  believe?  It  is  simple 
truth  to  say  that  that  army  thought  it  had  many  a  gen 
eral  of  its  own  who  was  Grant's  superior  in  everything. 

Then  early  in  the  second  winter  of  the  war,  just 
after  their  fierce  experience  of  Murfreesboro,  the  gen 
erals  of  the  Ohio  heard  of  that  recommendation  of 
Grant  to  create  one  big  command  out  of  the  western 
armies  and  departments,  all  under  one  head,  and  the 
inference  was  that  Grant  wished  to  be  that  head.  Per 
haps  he  did,  but  he  had  not  so  said  or  written,  and 
this  was  something  neither  Rosecrans  nor  any  of  his 
division  commanders  desired. 

Then  had  come  Grant's  splendid  campaign,  closing 
with  the  surrender  of  Vicksburg,  and  his  double  stars 
in  the  regular  army.  Then  had  followed  "  Old  Rosey's  " 
brilliant  campaign  of  manoeuvring,  closing  with  the 
sudden  and  amazing  disaster  of  Chickamauga  and  the 
downfall  of  three  prominent  chiefs  well-loved  in  the 
Cumberland — Rosecrans,  McCook  and  Crittenden.  The 
Army  of  the  Cumberland  was  every  whit  as  brave,  as 
loyal  and  devoted  as  that  of  the  Tennessee.  Moreover, 
it  contained  no  discordant  factors,  as  had  the  Ten 
nessee,  and  yet  with  all  its  loyalty,  its  fine  soldiership 
and  discipline,  its  proved  spirit  and  knightly  chivalry, 
it  stood  humbled  and  defeated,  while  its  rival  stood  ex 
alted  in  the  public  eye.  Luck,  superior  forces  and  bet 
ter  generalship  had  been  dead  against  it,  and  the  Army 
of  the  Cumberland  was  sore  in  spirit,  sore  at  heart. 

And  just  at  this  time,  as  more  ill  luck  would  have 
it,  there  spread  a  rumor  through  the  ranks,  and  it  was 

261 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

common  talk  about  headquarters,  that  Grant  had  said, 
and  Sherman  had  echoed,  that  the  Army  of  the  Cumber 
land  had  been  whipped  and  cowed — that  now  it  could 
not  be  induced  to  come  out  of  its  works  and  fight. 
(Sherman's  Memoirs  later  confirmed  the  statement.) 
Is  it  strange  that  now,  as  Grant  drew  nigh  to  become 
its  superior,  there  was  little  welcome  for  him  in  the 
army  at  last  led  by  George  H.  Thomas?  Is  it  strange 
that  these  two  great  and  loyal  soldiers  should  feel  the 
chill  of  that  same  enshrouding  cloud  the  wet  and  wintry 
evening  of  Grant's  arrival  at  Chattanooga? 

He  came  to  Thomas's  headquarters  after  dark  of  a 
long,  toilsome,  painful  day  of  riding  over  mountain 
roads,  reaching  the  Tennessee  wet  and  bedraggled,  only 
to  meet  with  further  mishap  on  the  southern  shore.  The 
injured  leg  had  caused  him  intense  pain  all  day,  and 
now,  to  make  matters  worse,  "  Old  Jack,"  one  of  his 
most  reliable  mounts,  slipped  and  fell  heavily,  and  that 
luckless  leg  was  again  pinned  and  crushed. 

It  was  in  this  plight  that  he  was  assisted  to  limp 
heavily  into  the  presence  of  Thomas,  and  presently 
the  two  were  left  together.  Just  what  passed  between 
them  neither  is  known  to  have  revealed.  Wilson,  hurry 
ing  in  a  few  moments  later,  described  the  scene  as 
follows : 

"I  found  Grant  at  one  side  of  the  fireplace,  steaming  from 
the  heat  over  a  small  puddle  which  had  run  from  his  sodden 
clothing.  Thomas  was  on  the  other  side,  neither  saying  a 
word,  but  both  looking  glum  and  ill  at  ease." 

Then,  learning  from  Rawlins  that  nothing  had  been 
offered  for  their  comfort,  and  knowing  that  Grant 
"  would  not  condescend  to  ask,"  Wilson  tells  of  his  own 
appeal  to  Thomas,  who  the  moment  he  realized  that 
Grant  was  weary,  hungry  and  in  pain,  as  well  as  drip 
ping  wet,  gave  instant  orders  for  warm,  dry  clothing, 
and  a  hot  supper.  Willard,  long  confidential  aide  to 

262 


GRANT  AND  THOMAS 

Thomas,  and  in  earlier  days  in  Milwaukee  the  writer's 
teacher  and  friend,  and  Kellogg,  the  junior  aide,  long 
years  later  the  writer's  regimental  comrade  and  cor 
respondent,  were  among  his  authorities  concerning  these 
and  other  episodes  at  the  time. 

Whatever  of  rancor  had  cropped  out  in  this  ill- 
omened  meeting  between  these  two  great  leaders  was 
presently  swept  aside  in  the  courtly  Virginian's  resump 
tion  of  the  duties  as  host.  Formality,  too,  was  speedily 
smothered.  For  the  rest  of  that  evening  the  generals 
and  their  staff  officers  mingled  and  chatted  with  all  ap 
parent  ease  and  cordiality,  but  Grant  lost  no  time  next 
day  in  selecting  a  house  of  his  own,  and  then  it  was 
noted  that  once  more  constraint  and  distance  separated 
the  two  establishments.  The  staffs,  taking  their  cue 
from  their  seniors,  became  formal  and  punctilious,  and 
out  along  the  lines  and  among  the  camp  fires  the  talk  was 
fast  and  furious  among  the  soldiery  as  they  scanned 
the  jagged  earthworks  on  the  commanding  ridges 
east  and  west,  and,  discussed  the  newcomers  under 
Hooker,  from  the  Potomac,  and  the  slow  approach  of 
Sherman  with  the  Tennessee,  and  passed  from  fire  to 
fire,  with  characteristic  American  candor,  their  impres 
sions  of  the  man  on  crutches  back  in  town,  and  of  these 
experts  from  east  and  west — from  the  army  in  Virginia 
and  the  army  in  Mississippi — who  were  come  or  were 
coming  to  show  the  Army  of  the  Cumberland  how  to 
fight.  Small  wonder  there  was  little  compliment  or  cor 
diality.  When  Pope  in  the  summer  of  '62  was  imported 
from  the  Army  of  the  West  to  high  command  over  the 
generals  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  he  affronted  the 
entire  force  at  the  very  outset  by  the  bombastic  lecture 
with  which  he  announced  "  Headquarters  in  the  Saddle  " 
and  that  he  came  from  an  army  in  which  they  had  been 
accustomed  to  see  only  the  backs  of  the  enemy,  which 
was  no  more  tactful  than  it  was  true.  When  Grant  in 

263 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

the  autumn  of  '63  was  imported  from  the  West  to  su 
preme  command  over  the  loved  generals  of  the  Army 
of  the  Cumberland,  he  stood  credited  with  having  said 
they  could  not  fight  and  that  he  was  fetching  Sherman 
and  the  Tennessee  to  show  them  how.  It  was  most  in 
auspicious,  and  it  had  wonderful  influence  in  what  fol 
lowed.  Eight  weeks  had  Bragg  and  his  veterans  in 
gray  occupied  the  long  barriers  of  Missionary  Ridge  to 
the  east  of  beleaguered  Chattanooga,  when  Sherman 
finally  came,  and,  crossing  the  Tennessee  above  the 
town,  was  sent  in  at  the  northward  end  of  the  ridge 
to  take  the  Confederate  army  in  flank  and  roll  it  south 
ward,  while  Thomas,  with  the  Cumberland  in  extended 
lines  of  battle  in  the  westward  valley,  should  face  the 
parallel  furrows  bristling  with  Southern  cannon  merely 
to  threaten,  but  not  to  be  sent  in  to  the  attack.  The 
Cumberland,  so  it  was  understood,  was  to  take  an  ob 
ject  lesson  in  fancy  fighting  from  the  Tennessee — to 
"  learn  how/'  as  it  were — and  Grant,  with  his  staff,  rode 
forward  to  Orchard  Knob,  midway  across  the  plain  and 
almost  under  the  guns,  where  Thomas,  grave  and  silent, 
greeted  his  superior  with  precise  salute,  and  where  the 
twain  sat  in  saddle  the  livelong  day,  listening  to  the 
crash  of  Sherman's  flank  attack  and  watching  the  far 
away  clouds  of  sulphur  smoke  which,  according  to  pro 
gram,  should  have  come  floating  steadily  southward,  but 
which  somehow  did  not,  for  Sherman  had  been  stopped 
at  Tunnel  Hill  as  flatly  as  in  front  of  the  Southern 
left  at  Vicksburg.  And  then  at  last,  tired  with  its  long 
wait,  and  even  of  satirical  comment  on  the  extent  and 
value  of  its  lesson  in  battle  tactics,  the  Cumberland  got 
its  orders  to  "  demonstrate,"  by  way  of  driving  off  some 
of  the  tremendous  force  opposed,  presumably,  to  the 
Tennessee.  Then  rejoicefully,  in  magnificent  array  and 
order,  the  four  divisions — Sheridan  and  Wood  in  the 
centre — had  marched  to  their  stations,  and  there  they 

264 


GRANT  AND  THOMAS 

received  the  order  to  advance,  drive  the  enemy  from 
the  lower  entrenchments  and  threaten — merely  threaten 
— the  ridge :  that  was  to  be  the  prize  of  Sherman  and 
the  Tennessee.  The  whole  nation  heard  the  rest  in  less 
than  a  week  thereafter— how,  like  a  human  tidal  wave, 
the  long  blue  ranks  struck  the  foremost  line,  sending 
the  occupants  scurrying  for  the  shelter  of  the  second, 
how  like  some  huge  breaker  they  had  burst  over  the 
parapets  and  then  rushed  onward.  They  should  have 
stopped  short  at  the  foot  of  the  heights,  those  long, 
jagged  ranks  in  blue.  But  they  had  been  "  stormed 
at  with  shot  and  shell,"  and  now  grape  and  canister  were 
hurtling  from  the  guns  above.  They  had  lost  heavily, 
were  losing  more,  had  "  got  the  rebels  on  the  run  "  and 
what  was  the  sense  in  stopping?  It  seems  as  though 
Sheridan's  men  had  said,  "  Come  on,  fellows,"  to 
Wood's,  and  that  Baird's  and  Brannan's  had  taken  the 
cue.  Be  that  as  it  may,  that  long,  light  blue  wave  of  the 
Cumberland  swarmed  and  swept  on  up  those  jagged 
slopes  to  the  very  summit,  and  in  ten  minutes  more  the 
men  were  tumbling  into  and  over  the  Confederate  works 
— Bragg  and  his  astonished  generals  barely  escaping 
with  their  lives. 

It  was  an  astounding  victory,  executed  by  no  means 
as  planned,  but  every  bit  as  effectively  as  hoped.  "  Who 
ordered  those  men  up  the  heights  ?  "  one  historian  de 
clares  that,  in  marked  disapprobation,  Grant  said  to 
Thomas.  "  No  one,"  was  the  prompt  reply ;  "  they're 
doing  it  of  their  own  accord,"  and  so  it  proved.  It  is 
also  recorded  by  the  same  historian  that  Grant's  instant 
response  was,  "  It  is  all  right  if  it  succeeds ;  if  it  doesn't, 
some  one  will  suffer,"  to  which  Thomas  said  nothing. 
His  men  were  talking  for  him. 

The  overwhelming  of  Bragg's  army  at  Missionary 
Ridge  clinched  for  all  time  Grant's  hold  upon  the  people 
as  their  great  and  successful  general.  To  them  it  was 

265 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

a  matter  of  little  concern  whether  the  battle  was  won 
for  him  by  the  Cumberland  or  the  Tennessee.  It  re 
doubled  the  popular  acclaim  for  Grant,  but  it  failed 
somehow  to  bridge  the  chasm  of  constraint  still  grow 
ing  between  him  and  the  noblest  of  his  subordinates. 
If  anything,  it  seemed  to  lead  on  to  even  graver  mis 
understanding  in  the  future,  to  impel  Grant  to  the 
very  brink  of  what  would  have  been  the  greatest  wrong 
he  ever  dealt  in  a  life  in  which  knowingly,  intentionally, 
wilfully,  he  never  wronged  man  or  woman — the  relief 
of  Thomas  on  the  eve  of  the  greatest  and  most  decisive 
victory  of  the  war. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 
GRANT  AND  SHERMAN 

THAT  soldiers'  battle  of  Missionary  Ridge  proved  the 
turning  point  in  the  fortunes  of  several  generals  promi 
nent  on  both  sides.  It  practically  closed  the  career  of 
Bragg,  whose  reputation  went  to  pieces  with  his  army. 
Henceforth  Joseph  E.  Johnston  was  to  be  the  hope  of 
the  South  in  Georgia  as  Lee  had  been  in  Virginia  since 
Johnston's  disabling  wound. 

On  the  Union  side,  two  or  three  generals  whose 
reputations  went  up  like  a  rocket  at  Chickamauga  came 
down  like  the  traditional  stick  at  Missionary  Ridge, 
notably  Gordon  Granger,  whom  Dana  had  proclaimed 
the  "  Ney  of  the  Army,"  the  soldiers  could  not  quite 
see  why.  Granger  had  certainly  made  a  swift  march 
of  a  few  miles  from  his  post  on  the  extreme  left,  and 
pitched  in  handsomely  with  two  small  brigades  to  the 
aid  of  Thomas  in  that  immortal  stand.  This  was  some 
thing  in  line  with  Desaix's  march  au  canon  at  Marengo, 
and  led  to  his  being  given  command  later  of  the  gallant 
Fourth  Corps.  But  at  Missionary  Ridge  he  proved  as 
great  a  disappointment  as  at  Chickamauga  he  had  proved 
a  surprise. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  was  Sheridan,  the  stocky, 
black-eyed  little  commander  of  Thomas's  centre  divi 
sion.  Two  months  before,  serving  in  McCook's  Corps 
at  Chickamauga,  he  had  been  caught  in  the  human  tor 
rent  that  swept  through  the  gap  when  Wood's  division 
was  withdrawn  by  mistake.  Far  up  on  the  ridge  he 
rallied  his  men,  marched  them  through  the  nearest  gap 
to  the  road  behind  it,  and  took  them  away  from  the 
field  where  some  of  their  fellows  were  still  fighting; 
then  fortunately  filed  to  the  right  through  a  northward 

267 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

gap,  and  late  in  the  afternoon  reappeared  in  rear  of 
Thomas  and  ready  to  support  him.  McCook  and  Crit- 
tenden,  who  had  also  been  whirled  away,  never  again 
recovered  their  commands,  but  "  Little  Phil "  kept  his 
with  him  until  that  evening  of  'November  25th,  where, 
taking  the  bit  in  its  teeth,  the  whole  division  ran  away 
from  its  general  officers,  stormed  the  heights  in  its 
front,  and  Sheridan  had  only  to  put  spurs  to  his  horse 
and  follow  on.  Two  months  earlier  he  led  that  divi 
sion  out  of  action,  and  it  well-nigh  wrecked  him.  This 
wonderful  evening  it  led  him  into  action  and  well-nigh 
made  him.  When,  half  an  hour  after  the  start,  Grant 
himself  appeared  in  saddle  on  the  captured  heights, 
Sheridan  and  his  men  were  far  down  among  the  east 
ward  foothills,  hurling  Bragg's  fugitives  back  to  the 
very  stream  over  which  two  months  earlier  they  had 
swept  triumphant.  It  was  a  great  day  for  Sheridan,  and 
from  that  time  on  Grant  had  him  ever  in  mind.  More 
over,  it  gave  to  Sheridan  a  confidence  in  himself  and 
his  men  which  he  lacked  before — the  confidence  which 
Grant  ever  had  and  which  made  Grant  indomitable. 

Sherman's  repute  was  neither  aided  nor  harmed  by 
Missionary  Ridge.  He  had  made  a  brilliant  crossing 
and  had  followed  it  with  a  fairly  bold  attack,  driving 
the  Confederate  lines  a  short  distance  until  they  brought 
up  on  Tunnel  Hill  and  Pat  Cleburne — as  superb  a 
fighter  as  the  South  could  muster,  and  it  mustered  them 
by  scores.  Cleburne  was  still  there  "  standing  off " 
Sherman  when  those  four  divisions  of  the  Cumberland 
swarmed  up  the  slopes  behind  him  and  whirled  away 
every  vestige  of  support.  Cleburne  therefore  had  to 
let  go  in  order  to  save  what  was  left  of  his  command. 
Then  Sherman  too  could  advance,  but  not  until  the 
following  day.  It  was  the  Cumberland  that  went  snap 
ping  at  the  heels  of  the  retreating  host,  Thomas  close 
following  his  victorious  men,  and  never  stopping  to  ask 
Grant  if  anybody  in  particular  was  now  to  suffer. 

268 


GRANT  AND  SHERMAN 

Thomas  had  much  dignity  and  little  sense  of  humor. 
He  took  the  situation  seriously,  but  there  were  men  in 
that  rejoiceful  Army  of  the  Cumberland  who  presently 
found  no  end  of  fun  in  it. 

The  shades  of  night  came  slowly  down  when  Grant 
reined  up  far  over  to  the  east  of  the  heights  whereon 
Bragg's  headquarters  had  been  perched  for  weeks,  and 
still  he  had  not  overtaken  his  victorious  army  com 
mander — "  The  Rock  of  Chickamauga."  This  may 
explain  why  no  congratulations  passed  between  them. 
Grant  sent  aides-de-camp  to  his  leading  generals  to  let 
them  know  that  he  was  now  returned  to  headquarters  at 
Chattanooga,  there  to  receive  them  or  their  reports. 
The  aide  sent  to  Thomas  came  back  saying  he  couldn't 
find  him,  and  as  that  aide  had  been  longer  with  Grant 
than  any  other  and  seemed  to  accomplish  less,  Grant 
contented  himself  at  the  moment  with  telling  Wilson  to 
take  up  the  duty  the  other  could  not  perform,  and 
Wilson  says  he  groped  for  nearly  two  hours  up  the 
banks  of  Chickamauga  creek  before  he  ran  into  Baird's 
division,  bivouacked  and  blissful,  carried  out  his  mis 
sion  and  rode  until  near  dawn,  getting  back  to  his  chief, 
finding  Grant  awake  and  remorseful  for  having  given 
him  an  all-night  ride  after  a  long  day  in  saddle — some 
thing  Wilson  did  not  mind  in  the  least.  Thomas  had 
sent  staff  officers  with  full  report  and  still  Grant  could 
not  sleep.  A  tireless  man  in  saddle  himself,  and  one 
who  hailed  in  Wilson  a  fellow  horseman,  he  neverthe 
less  hated  to  impose  unnecessary  fatigue,  labor  or  ex 
posure  upon  his  staff.  One  and  all  they  bear  testimony 
to  this — Grant's  courtesy  and  consideration  for  them, 
and  for  those  who  served  with  and  under  him.  But,  to 
the  grim  satisfaction  of  Rawlins,  he  had  at  last  to  rid 
himself  of  the  aide  who  "  couldn't  find  Thomas." 

Right  here  at  Chattanooga  Grant  was  to  fill  the  va 
cancy  by  the  appointment  cf  Horace  Porter  of  the 
Ordnance  Corps,  Wilson's  classmate,  roommate  and  in- 

269 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

timate — as  fine  a  soldier  as  his  chum  and  even  more 
valuable  as  an  aide.  Gifted  with  infinite  humor  and 
wit,  Porter  could  be  as  reticent  and  close-mouthed  as 
Grant  himself.  The  acquaintance,  begun  the  night  of 
Grant's  bedraggled  coming  to  Chattanooga,  ripened 
speedily  into  faith  and  trust,  and  then  to  fond  and 
fervent  regard  which  strengthened  with  every  day  of 
their  association.  It  was  high  time  Grant  had  strength 
ened  his  personal  following,  for  Rawlins,  Wilson  and 
Bowers,  his  most  valuable  and  reliable  officers,  were 
sorely  overworked.  It  was  through  Wilson  that  Grant 
selected  the  military  secretary  so  long  needed,  for  after 
Vicksburg  his  correspondence  became  voluminous. 
Then,  as  luck  would  have  it,  the  man  he  pitched  upon, 
"  unsight,  unseen,"  was  shot  through  the  foot  at  Port 
Hudson,  had  a  long,  slow,  painful  convalescence,  and 
was  unable  to  join  until  after  Missionary  Ridge.  He 
was  a  most  scholarly,  highly-educated,  little  fellow,  had 
gone  with  the  expedition  to  Hilton  Head  in  '61,  and 
made  himself  so  popular  that  the  officers  recommended 
him  for  a  commission,  and  it  was  given  him.  But  they 
could  not  make  him  a  soldier.  Adam  Badeau  proved  a 
success  as  a  secretary,  and  in  many  a  way  was  of  so 
much  use  to  Grant  that  the  relationship  lasted  even 
through  the  sorrowful  days  of  that  second  overthrow 
at  the  hands  of  Fate.  Meantime  Badeau  had  for  nearly 
twenty  years  been  a  faithful  friend,  follower  and  a  some 
what  fulsome  biographer.  Until  misfortune  came  he 
could  see  no  star  in  all  the  constellations  of  the  heavens 
to  compare  with  that  to  which  he  had  "  hitched  his 
wagon."  With  the  final  dissolution,  however,  the  hitch 
ing  broke. 

The  wintry  months  following  the  victory  of  Chat 
tanooga  were  full  of  import.  The  people  now  would 
have  it  that  Grant,  the  man  of  the  West,  was  the  one 
man  of  the  war  and  should  be  recognized  and  rewarded 
accordingly.  The  President  was  much  their  way  of 

270 


GRANT  AND  SHERMAN 

thinking,  and  in  Mr.  Elihu  Washburne  and  in  Governor 
Yates  he  had  fervent  backers.  But  in  large  numbers 
prominent  political  leaders  still  doubted,  still  feared. 
Notably  was  this  the  case  in  the  Senate.  A  bill  to  create 
the  office  of  lieutenant-general  had  been  prepared,  and 
yet  hung  fire.  Grant,  never  quitting  his  post  at  the 
front,  set  himself  busily  to  the  task  of  relieving  Knox- 
ville  to  the  northeast,  and  of  warding  off  Johnston  to 
the  southeast.  Then,  with  Christmas  over  and  cam 
paigning  for  the  present  at  an  end,  he  began  planning 
future  operations,  and  while  he  was  about  it,  writing 
recommendations  for  promotion  of  certain  of  the  staff 
officers  and  generals  about  him,  and  for  the  re-employ 
ment  of  certain  generals  who,  it  is  safe  to  say,  were 
not  agitating  themselves  and  the  powers-that-were  in 
Grant's  behalf.  It  seemed  to  him  that  McQellan,  Buell 
and  a  few  others,  now  shelved,  were  men  of  marked 
ability  in  certain  lines,  and  that  they  and  the  cause  might 
be  the  better  off  for  their  employment.  Personal  con 
siderations  did  not  enter  into  the  matter.  It  is  pos 
sible  that  the  re-employment  of  McClernand  would  have 
occurred  to  him,  even  though  that  fiery  opponent  had 
stirred  every  possible  friend  and  strained  every  nerve 
to  induce  the  President  to  reopen  his  case  and  to  bring 
Grant  before  a  board  of  investigation.  But  when,  about 
the  end  of  November,  the  North  began  to  realize  the 
magnitude  of  Grant's  great  victory  at  Chattanooga, 
McClernand  finally  realized  the  futility  of  his  appeal, 
and  thereafter  little  was  heard  of  it.  Another  year  and 
he  decided  to  resign.  It  was  one  of  the  most  sorrowful 
endings  of  what  might  have  been  one  of  the  most  suc 
cessful  careers  had  McClernand  been  content  to  serve 
and  follow  instead  of  being  possessed  with  the  craze 
to  undermine,  overthrow  and  lead.  It  was  said  that  he 
denounced  West  Point  and  the  West  Point  influence  as 
the  cause  of  his  undoing,  but  it  must  have  been  only  a 
limited  few  of  the  West  Pointers  to  whom  he  objected, 

271 


THE  TRUE  ULYSESS  S.  GRANT 

for  he  was  later  seeking  an  appointment  at  large  for  his 
son,  who,  entering  in  '66 — oddly  enough,  side  by  side 
with  the  son  of  General  Grant — was  graduated  in  1870, 
in  which  achievement  he  distanced  the  son  of  the  Presi 
dent,  who,  according  to  West  Point's  inexorable  law, 
had  had  to  fall  back  and  try  again.  The  younger  Mc- 
Clernand  proved  himself  to  the  full  to  have  all  his 
gallant  father's  bravery,  energy  and  ability,  coupled 
with  a  disciplined  mind  and  a  soldierly  sense  of  duty 
which  bore  him  on  to  his  generalship  in  the  regular  ser 
vice,  honored  by  every  man  who  ever  served  with  or 
knew  him. 

And  in  the  plans  and  preparations  for  what  was  to 
come  with  the  spring,  the  man  ever  closest  to  Grant's 
elbow  was  Rawlins,  and  the  man  ever  brimming  over 
with  helpfulness  and  suggestion  was  Sherman. 
Wherever  the  duties  of  his  command  might  take  him, 
Sherman's  heart  was  there  with  Grant,  who  had  come 
to  be  in  his  mind  the  great  aggressive  general  of  the 
war — the  man  of  all  others  destined  to  win  the  final 
victory.  If  ever  there  was  a  moment  in  which  Sherman 
would  have  welcomed  the  downfall  of  Grant  and  the 
substitution  of  his  own  name  for  that  of  the  deposed 
general-in-chief,  his  closest  friend  or  Grant's  most 
malignant  enemy  could  never  discover  it.  Sherman's 
loyalty  was  something  whole-hearted,  spontaneous,  ab 
solute.  He  had  differed  with  Grant  on  matters  of 
strategy  at  times;  he  had  opposed  the  running  of  the 
Vicksburg  batteries,  and  vehemently  argued  against  the 
Jackson  compaign,  but,  like  the  man  he  was,  had  frankly 
owned  up,  and  said  Grant  was  right.  Now,  by  the 
winter  of  '63-64,  Sherman  had  nothing  but  admiration 
for  his  chief,  and  his  only  dread  for  him  was  that  of 
Washington  and  the  influences  which  would  there  beset 
him.  For  politics  and  politicians,  in  spite  of  his  family 
connections,  and  for  everything  controlled  by  political 
influences,  Sherman  ever  had  a  wholesome  horror.  He 

272 


GRANT  AND  SHERMAN 

could  not  welcome  the  prospect  of  Grant's  getting  the 
lieutenant-generalship  if  it  meant  that  he  must  take 
station  at  the  War  Department.  He  dreaded  any  move 
which  might  take  Grant  from  the  midst  of  the  men  who 
knew  and  believed  in  him — those  men  of  the  West  with 
whom  they  two,  Grant  and  Sherman,  together  had 
hewed  their  way  to  fame.  He  had  a  westerner's  idea 
that  the  Army  of  the  Potomac — which  had  been  so 
superbly  loyal  and  subordinate  and  self-sacrificing,  no 
matter  who  was  set  over  it — would  not  back  this  plain 
westerner  as  had  "  the  Tennessee  "  through  thick  and 
thin.  His  antipathy  to  the  War  Department  and  its 
methods  grew  as  the  war  went  on  and  rose  to  fever 
heat  against  Stanton  in  '65,  to  the  end  that  publicly 
he  refused  his  hand  at  the  great  review,  and  would  have 
none  of  him  thereafter.  Even  when  he  became  gen- 
eral-in-chief,  with  his  own  Grant  at  the  White  House, 
Sherman  found  the  War  Department  intolerable  and 
moved  headquarters  of  the  army  to  St.  Louis. 

But  ever,  from  Vicksburg  onward,  he  remained  to 
the  very  last  the  loyal  and  unswerving  friend  of  Grant. 
He  declared  him  the  greatest  "  all  round  soldier  and 
general  "of  the  war.  He  spoke  of  him  with  generous 
enthusiasm  time  and  again.  Nothing  is  more  character 
istic  of  Sherman  than  the  frank  and  at  the  same  time 
"  acute  and  just  analysis  "  with  which,  in  his  own  im 
pulsive  and  inimitable  way,  he  favored  Wilson,  who  had 
come  to  command  all  the  cavalry  of  the  West.  It  was 
just  before  the  memorable  March  to  the  Sea.  They 
had  been  in  confidential  chat  long  into  the  night  and  at 
last,  in  speaking  of  Grant,  whom  each  had  come  to  re 
gard  as  the  best  and  strongest  of  the  Union  leaders,  no 
matter  what  had  been  his  errors  or  his  weakness,  Sher 
man  suddenly  burst  forth : 

"Wilson,  I  am  a  d d  sight  smarter  man  than  Grant; 

I  know  a  great  deal  more  about  war,  military  history,  strategy 
and  grand  tactics  than  he  does;  I  know  mere  about  organiza- 
18  273 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

tion,  supply  and  administration  and  about  everything  else  than 
he  does ;  but  I'll  tell  you  where  he  beats  me  and  where  he 
beats  the  world.  He  don't  care  a  damn  for  what  the  enemy 
does  out  of  his  sight,  but  it  scares  me  like  hell,"  adding  further : 
"  He  issues  his  orders  and  does  his  level  best  to  carry  them 
out  without  much  reference  to  what  is  going  on  about  him, 
and,  so  far,  experience  seems  to  have  fully  justified  him." 

"  And  those  who  knew  both,"  says  Wilson — and  this 
was  penned  long  years  after  the  war — "  will  have  set 
tled  down  to  the  conclusion  that  Grant  was  a  far  safer 
and  saner  general  than  Sherman." 

With  his  one  weakness,  his  few  faults,  his  many 
foes,  Ulysses  Grant  was  blessed  by  the  devotion  and 
loyalty  of  such  stanch  and  fervent  friends. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 
GRANT  AND  THE  LIEUTENANT-GENERALSHIP 

EARLY  in  the  spring  of  '64  the  Congress  yielded  to 
popular  demand  and,  recreating  the  office  of  lieutenant- 
general,  enabled  the  President  to  confer  it  upon  Grant, 
who  was  personally  summoned  to  assume  entire  control 
of  the  armies  in  the  field,  and  with  a  sigh  of  relief 
Abraham  Lincoln  affixed  his  signature  to  the  commis 
sion,  and  Halleck  and  Stanton  with  the  best  grace 
they  could  command  awaited  the  triumphant  coming  of 
the  Conqueror  of  the  West 

"  U.  S.  Grant  and  Son,  Galena,  Ills." 

wrote  a  travel-worn,  bearded,  somewhat  stoop- 
shouldered  man  of  middle  age,  in  the  register  at  Wil- 
lard's  Hotel,  one  gusty  morning  in  early  March,  and 
the  clerk  in  charge,  who  was  figuring  on  a  fifth  floor 
room  at  the  back  of  the  house  at  first  sight  of  the  new 
arrivals,  glanced  casually  at  the  name,  began  with 

"  Show  Mr.  Grant  to "  when  somebody  precipitated 

himself  upon  the  unobtrusive  stranger,  seizing  and  ve 
hemently  shaking  both  his  hands  and  exclaiming: 

"  Why,  General  Grant,  we  didn't  expect  you  till " 

whereupon  the  clerk  gave  a  gasp  and  the  by-standers  a 
start.  And  then  came  an  impromptu  reception  all  too 
hearty  and  insistent  for  the  modest  and  embarrassed 
recipient,  who  wanted  a  bath  and  breakfast.  Some 
biographers  say  that  Mrs.  Grant  and  Colonel  Rawlins 
accompanied  him  on  his  arrival  at  the  capital.  Others 
have  it  that  they  came  later,  by  way  of  Philadelphia, 
where  certain  shopping  had  to  be  attended  to.  At  all 
events  it  was  but  a  short  time  before  Mrs.  Grant's  ar 
rival  at  Willard's. 

275 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Meanwhile,  however,  had  occurred  the  memorable 
scene  at  the  White  House  of  the  9th  of  March,  in  which 
the  President  formally  invested  the  first  lieutenant- 
general  since  the  days  of  Washington  with  the  creden 
tials  of  his  new  rank.  In  so  doing  the  President  made  a 
brief  and  pithy  speech,  closing  with  the  words,  "  With 
this  high  honor  devolves  upon  you  also  a  corresponding 
responsibility.  As  the  country  herein  trusts  you,  so 
under  God  it  will  sustain  you." 

Knowing  well  by  this  time  that  Grant  was  no  speech 
maker,  the  ever  considerate  President  had  sent  him  in 
advance  a  copy  of  the  remarks  which  he  proposed  to 
make,  and,  still  further  to  put  the  recipient  at  his  ease, 
Mr.  Lincoln  decided  to  read  in  order  that  Grant  might 
do  likewise.  And  so  it  is  recorded  that  the  quiet- 
mannered  officer  from  the  West,  still  wearing  the  coat 
of  a  major-general,  and  for  once  at  least  buttoned  to 
the  chin,  listened  gravely  to  the  words  of  praise,  en 
couragement  and  confidence,  then  fished  from  a  pocket 
a  half  sheet  of  paper  and,  in  low  but  audible  tones,  read 
the  following  reply: 

"  Mr.  President,  I  accept  the  commission  with  gratitude 
for  the  high  honor  conferred.  With  the  aid  of  the  noble  armies 
that  have  fought  on  many  a  field  for  our  common  country, 
it  will  be  my  earnest  endeavor  not  to  disappoint  your  expecta 
tions.  I  feel  the  full  weight  of  the  responsibilities  now  de 
volving  upon  me,  and  I  know  that  if  they  are  met  it  will  be 
due  to  those  armies  and  above  all  to  the  favor  of  that 
Providence  which  leads  both  nations  and  men." 

The  President  and  Mrs.  Lincoln,  of  course,  invited 
the  new  lieutenant-general  and  his  wife  to  dinner,  but 
the  former  had  already  hurried  down  to  Fortress 
Monroe  and  could  not  return  in  time.  Many  another 
social  diversion  was  in  waiting  for  him  when  he  reap 
peared,  for  people  of  every  class  seemed  eager  to  meet, 
see,  and  hear  him,  and  a  more  elusive  celebrity  never 
crossed  the  threshold  of  Willard's,  a  more  obstinate  and 

276 


GRANT  AND  LIEUTENANT-GENERALSHIP 

intractable  arrival  never  baffled  a  caller  or  balked 
a  correspondent  Conferences  with  the  President,  with 
Halleck,  Stanton,  Wilson  (then  at  the  head  of  the 
Cavalry  Bureau),  and  the  chiefs  of  the  departments 
of  supply  took  up  every  moment  of  his  time.  He  could 
not,  he  said,  accept  social  invitations.  He  would  not, 
said  Rawlins,  accord  interviews,  or  what  at  that  time 
passed  for  such,  for  the  art  was  in  its  infancy.  He  was 
bent  on  getting  out  of  Washington  and  away  to  the 
front  at  the  earliest  possible  moment,  and,  leaving  scores 
of  invitations  unaccepted,  the  new  general-in-chief  took 
over  the  duties  hitherto  devolving  upon  Halleck,  leaving 
to  that  scientific  soldier  the  improvised  office  of  chief- 
of-staff  U.  S.  Army,  while  Rawlins,  the  indispensable, 
took  the  field  as  chief-of-staff  to  the  lieutenant-general 
commanding.  Just  as  unobtrusively  as  he  had  come, 
Grant  vanished  from  Washington,  and  presently  pitched 
his  tent  with  those  of  the  silently  waiting  Army  of  the 
Potomac — the  most  momentous  coming,  probably,  in 
all  its  history. 

For  it  was  a  noble  command.  Granted  to  the 
Cumberland  and  the  Tennessee  everything  ever  claimed 
for  either  by  their  most  ardent  friends,  neither  at  Don- 
elson  nor  Murfreesboro,  at  Shiloh  nor  Corinth,  at 
Vicksburg,  Champion's  Hill  nor  Chattanooga  had  they 
encountered  such  generals  and  such  troops  as  from  the 
outset  were  pitted  against  the  Army  of  the  Potomac. 
The  flower  of  the  Confederate  forces  were  these  men 
of  Lee,  Longstreet  and  Stonewall  Jackson.  Time  and 
again,  valiant,  subordinate  and  superbly  self-sacrificing, 
had  the  men  of  the  Potomac  answered  every  demand, 
no  matter  how  ill-advised,  and  loyally  had  their  regi 
mental  officers  and  the  rank  and  file  supported  every 
general  appointed  over  them — no  matter  how  ill-fitted 
for  command.  Whatsoever  may  be  said  of  their  im 
mediate  leaders,  no  man  can  ever  justly  asperse  the 
loyalty,  the  devotion,  the  discipline  and  valor  of  the 

277 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Army  of  the  Potomac.  And  now,  silent  and  subordi 
nate  as  ever,  it  stood  to  arms  to  droop  its  colors  to  the 
silent  man  from  the  West,  and  take  its  orders  hence 
forth  from  him  who  came  to  them  a  stranger.  At 
Gettysburg,  so  said  Lincoln,  their  myriad  dead  had 
given  the  "  full  measure  of  devotion,"  but  there  were 
days  to  come  in  which  in  fuller  measure  still,  duty  to 
this  stern,  implacable  soldier  should  demand  of  them 
their  utmost  endeavor — their  uttermost  devotion,  for, 
far  beyond  the  breaking  strain  of  the  disciplined  soldiery 
of  the  old  world,  it  was  their  destiny  to  be  tried  by 
Grant,  and  it  is  their  deathless  glory  that  to  the  utter 
most  they  answered  him,  and  died  by  thousands  that  in 
the  supreme  grapple  twixt  North  and  South  the  Union 
at  last  should  triumph  and  the  nation  live. 

Over  that  fearful  progress  from  the  Rapidan  to  the 
James,  with  its  days  of  fierce  hand-to-hand  fighting  in 
the  Wilderness,  of  wild  charge  and  countercharge  at 
Spottsylvania,  of  human  sacrifice  and  fruitless,  sense 
less  assault  at  Cold  Harbor,  it  is  not  the  purpose  of  this 
chronicle  to  linger.  Every  general  yet  pitted  against 
Lee  in  Virginia  had  recoiled  before  him,  and  this  Grant 
would  not  do.  If  in  headlong  assault  he  could  not 
drive  him  from  his  intrenched  lines,  he  slipped  around 
the  eastward  flank  and  so  bore  ever  onward.  If  beaten 
back  at  any  point  along  that  deadly  front,  he  kept  the 
columns  ever  winding  southward,  sending  back  the  in 
spiring  words,  "  We  will  fight  it  out  on  this  line  if  it 
takes  all  summer."  Never  before  had  Northern  gen 
eral  taken  such  punishment  and  still  pushed  on. 
"  Butcher  "  they  cried  at  the  North,  as  the  fearful  list 
of  casualties  grew  r.nd  multiplied.  Cold-blooded  and 
brutal  they  pictured  and  denounced  him,  sitting  placidly 
and  smoking  and  whittling  while,  in  the  execution  of 
his  implacable  will,  his  men  were  dying  by  hundreds— 
and  yet  did  not  Rawlins  and  Bowers  tell  us  how,  when 
the  tidings  came  that  Gordon's  furious  onset  had 

278 


GRANT  AND  LIEUTENANT-GENERALSHIP 

smashed  in  Sedgwick's  right,  with  heavy  loss  in  killed 
and  captured,  though  with  outward  calm  the  command 
ing  general  gave  every  needful  order  to  restore  the  falter 
ing  centre,  no  sooner  were  the  adjutants  sent  scurrying 
away  than,  turning  from  the  silent  few  at  his  camp  fire, 
Grant  hastily  entered  his  tent,  threw  himself  face  down 
ward  on  his  cot,  and  for  the  first  time  in  his  known  life 
gave  way  to  emotion  uncontrollable.  Even  Rawlins  stood 
awe-stricken.  Sympathetic  and  tender-hearted  as  he 
knew  his  chief  to  be,  never  had  he  dreamed  that  Grant 
could  so  feel  and  suffer.  The  death  of  "  Aleck  "  Hays, 
shot  dead  the  night  before,  heading  his  division,  had 
deeply  moved  the  General,  and  now  came  this  crushing 
blow  that  wrecked  his  right  wing,  yet  must  not  swerve 
him  from  his  purpose.  Whatever  happened,  though  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac  died  in  its  tracks  and  he  with  it,  it 
must  never  again  turn  back,  and  it  never  did.  Though 
thousands  of  its  chosen  strewed  the  pathway  from  Ger- 
manna  Ford  to  the  James,  there  was  still  left  to  Grant 
enough  to  pen  the  army  of  Lee  within  the  lines  of  Peters 
burg  and  Richmond.  Once  there  he  could  hold  him  for 
the  final  overthrow. 

Daringly,  brilliantly,  bravely  as  it  had  fought  from 
the  start,  the  Southern  army  outdid  itself  in  that  marvel 
lous  defense.  The  leaders  well  knew  that  this  was  to  be 
the  supreme  test,  that  at  last  there  had  come  to  head 
the  Northern  host  a  man  who  never  yet  had  lost  a 
battle,  and  who  now  took  the  field  with  an  army  in  the 
pink  of  condition,  far  outnumbering  theirs.  Lee  could 
muster  but  sixty-five  thousand  all  told;  the  South  had 
sent  its  last  levies  into  action,  "  robbing  the  very  cradle 
and  the  grave  "  for  men  to  fill  its  depleted  ranks.  The 
North,  though  divided  in  sentiment  and  cursed  with 
"  copperheads,"  had  far  from  exhausted  either  its  men 
or  its  means.  Grant  had  still  abundant  resources  on 
which  to  draw.  Lee  had  little  or  nothing.  And  yet  Lee 
and  his  officers  rode  into  that  campaign  like  Paladins  of 

279 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

old,  for  a  wave  of  religious  fervor  had  swept  over  the 
Southern  camps  during  the  winter  agone,  and,  as  though 
consecrated  to  their  task,  shriving  themselves  as  did  the 
Normans  the  night  before  Hastings,  fared  forth  into 
battle  with  faith  in  their  hearts  and  prayer  on  their 
set  lips.  Weaker  in  numbers  they  were,  but  never  were 
they  stronger,  and  so  the  Union  army  found  before  ever 
they  reached  the  bloody  angle  of  Spottsylvania,  and  the 
men  of  the  Potomac  could  only  strive  on,  fight  on,  dog 
gedly,  loyally,  but  with  hardly  a  sign  of  cheer,  enthu 
siasm  and  never  of  exultation. 

It  had  been  planned  and  hoped  that  the  Army  of  the 
James,  under  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  should  so  vehemently 
threaten  Richmond  from  the  east  as  to  compel  Lee  to 
look  to  his  rear,  and  leave  fewer  men  to  oppose  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac ;  but  Butler  compelled  not  at  all.  It  had 
been  planned  that  our  cavalry,  now  under  Sheridan, 
should  do  great  things  in  aid  of  the  slow-moving  in 
fantry,  but  the  cavalry  corps  had  not  come  to  know  their 
new  leader,  or  he  them,  or  even  himself.  It  is  no  dis 
paragement  to  the  Union  cavalry  that  even  after  its 
sturdy  work  under  Gregg  and  Buford  at  Gettysburg,  it 
was  still,  in  the  spring  of  '64,  innocent  of  its  higher  pur 
poses  and  possibilities.  Even  Grant  sent  and  Sheridan 
led  it  astray  on  an  almost  fruitless  raid.  They  dealt 
death  at  Yellow  Tavern  to  the  plumed  leader,  Stuart,  of 
the  Southern  Horse.  They  might  even  have  ridden  into 
Richmond,  but  they  rode  back.  Not  yet  did  Sheridan 
see  his  powers,  even  though  his  great  leader  had  pre 
dicted  that  in  the  little  Fourth  infantryman  of  the  50*5, 
the  snappy  division  commander  of  the  Cumberland, 
there  should  stand  revealed  the  great  cavalry  leader  of 
the  close  of  the  war. 

Oddly  enough  it  was  Halleck  who  suggested  his 
name. 

Grant  had  been  impressed  with  the  fact  that,  even 
after  Stuart's  overthrow  by  Gregg  at  Gettysburg  and  his 

280 


GRANT  AND  LIEUTENANT-GENERALSHIP 

senseless  self-separation  from  Lee  before  ft,  the  glamour 
of  his  previous  achievements  had  given  the  Southern 
cavalry  prestige  over  the  sturdy  horsemen  by  this  time 
developed  in  the  North.  What  was  needed  was  a  man 
to  command  and  lead  our  cavalry.  "  How  would 
Sheridan  do  ?  "  asked  Halleck,  when  the  matter  was 
brought  up  in  conference  at  the  War  Department.  "  The 
very  man,"  safe!  Grant.  And  so  fn  addition  to  Grant, 
frhported  from  the  West  to  "  push  things  "  fn  Virginia, 
and  to  "  Baldy  "  Smfth  (whom  the  Army  of  the  Potomac 
for  old  times'  sake  might  have  welcomed,  as  the  Army 
of  the  James,  fts  ch?ef  at  least,  dfti  not),  and  to  Wilson, 
speedily  announced  as  division  commander,  there  also 
came  to  them,  raised  from  an  infantry  division  to  com 
mand  a  cavalry  corps,  that  black-eyed,  swarthy,  short- 
legged  son  of  Ohio  from  the  Army  of  the  Cumberland 
whom  everybody  knew  as  "  Phil  "  Sheridan.  The  great 
mass  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  the  infantry,  ac 
cepted  in  silence  and  subordination  the  new  dispensation. 
They  still  retained  the  generals  under  whom  they  had 
fought,  and  to  many  of  whom  they  were  attached. 
Meade,  as  commander  of  the  army,  Hancock,  Warren 
and  Sedgwick,  heading  the  three  corps,  "  Old  Burn  " 
commanding  an  outside  organization  independent  of 
Meade,  but  acting  under  Grant — these  were  all  Army 
of  the  Potomac  men.4 

But  it  was  different  in  the  cavalry.  It  is  true  that 
their  former  commanders,  Stoneman  and  Pleasonton, 
had  earlier  left  them,  that  glorious  John  Buford  had 
sickened  and  died,  that  fiery  Kilpatrick  had  been  shifted 
to  other  fields.  They  still  had  with  them,  modest,  silent, 
but  a  superb  soldier*  David  McM.  Gregg.  They  had 
their  younger  brigadiers,  Merritt,  Custer  and  Davies. 
They  took  it  mud* 'amiss  that  over  the  heads  of  these 
should  be  placed  the  infantry  division  leader,  Sheridan, 
and  over  the  hea/fs  of  Merritt,  Custer  and  others,  as 
division  commarfders,  should  be  set  their  junior  on  the 
j  281 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

list  of  brigadiers,  who,  though  the  right-hand  man  of 
Grant  in  the  West,  was  in  their  eyes  the  "  Engineer  " 
Wilson.  Finally  another  importation  from  the  infantry, 
if  not  from  the  West,  was  assigned  to  them,  General 
Torbert,  he  being  given  one  of  their  three  divisions,  and 
so  the  cup  of  the  cavalry  was  filled  with  bitterness.  And 
yet,  almost  from  the  start,  they  began  to  like  Sheridan, 
and  when,  in  less  than  a  fortnight  of  the  start,  Meade 
and  Sheridan  clashed  in  emphatic  and  spectacular  de 
bate,  and  even  the  sulphurous  battle  fumes  about  them 
lost  by  contrast  something  of  their  satanic  character,  the 
cavalry  began  to  swear  with,  instead  of  at,  Sheridan. 
After  Winchester  and  Cedar  Creek  they  swore  by  him. 

Grant's  reorganization  of  the  cavalry  corps  of  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac  was  later  justified  in  the  results 
obtained ;  but  that,  too,  was  something  for  which  he  had 
to  wait  in  patience.  He  had  troubles  enough  on  his 
hands  as  the  summer  of  '64  came  on.  The  plans  were 
admirable.  Sherman  with  his  now  enthusiastic  and 
united  army  was  to  advance  on  Atlanta  from  the  Ten 
nessee,  and  keep  Johnston  busy  in  the  West.  In  Vir 
ginia  Lee's  sixty-five  thousand  in  the  field  were  to  be 
assailed  by  Meade  and  Burnside  with  no  less  than  ninety 
thousand  men,  all  under  the  eye  of  Grant ;  while  Butler, 
far  down  the  James,  was  to  threaten  Richmond  with 
twenty  thousand  from  the  east.  Ord  and  Crook,  each 
with  a  formidable  column,  received  orders  to  descend 
upon  the  upper  James  from  the  northwest,  and  it  was 
confidently  hoped  that  long  ere  the  summer  solstice, 
Richmond  and  gold  would  fall.  But  when  the  autumn 
came  Richmond  was  as  stanch  as  ever,  gold  had  gone 
soaring  to  290,  and  Grant  had  rrtet  with  setbacks  in 
numerable,  and  yet  there  he  was  indomitably  hanging  on, 
his  lines  investing  Petersburg,  his  supplies  coming  easily 
by  water  to  City  Point. 

Then  by  way  of  diversion  Lee  sent  Early  into  Mary 
land  and  scared  Washington  out  of  its  seven  senses. 

282 


GRANT  AND  LIEUTENANT-GENERALSHIP 

Then  Grant  sent  Sheridan  to  the  Shenandoah  to  put  an 
end  to  all  that  sort  of  thing  in  future,  and  Sheridan's 
successes  so  broadened  and  inspired  him  and  all  who 
served  with  him — the  cavalry  and  the  Sixth  Corps 
especially — that  when  in  the  early  spring  these  travel- 
stained,  but  now  confident  and  co-operating  troopers 
trotted  jauntily  back  to  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  dull 
and  dispirited  after  its  ineffectual  assaults  and  its  long 
months  in  the  trenches,  and  the  jingling  sabres  and 
fluttering  guidons  came  winding  along  the  entire  rear 
of  the  huddling  groups  in  winter  quarters,  like  some 
half-asleep,  hibernating  bruin  the  army  seemed  sud 
denly  to  wake  and  give  tongue,  and  volleys  of  chaff  and 
soldier  satire  went  echoing  through  the  sombre  woods. 
It  was  the  reveille  of  final  victory. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 
THE  LULL  BEFORE  THE  STORM 

BUT  while  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  had  received 
without  enthusiasm  the  news  of  the  elevation  to  supreme 
command  of  this  man  from  the  West,  there  were  a  cer 
tain  few  that  rejoiced  with  exceeding  joy — West 
Pointers,  men  like  Sherman,  McPherson,  Sheridan, 
Ingalls,  Augur,  Macfeely,  Wilson,  Comstock  and 
Horace  Porter — men  of  brains  and  soldiership  who 
either  had  known  and  loved  him  in  the  old  days,  or  had 
learned  to  know  and  love  him  in  the  new.  The  men  of 
the  Potomac  had  not  heard  the  sweetest  things  of  him 
in  letters  from  their  comrades  of  Hooker's  Corps  sent 
to  aid  him  on  the  Tennessee.  Hooker  himself,  chagrined 
at  the  failure  of  his  attempt  to  take  the  upper  hand,  had 
been  further  aggrieved  at  the  half  whimsical  but  alto 
gether  true  endorsement  placed  by  Grant  upon  Hooker's 
characteristic  report  of  his  share  in  the  battles  about 
Chattanooga,  in  the  course  of  which  he  claimed  to  have 
captured  more  artillery  than,  as  Grant  pointed  out,  was 
taken  by  the  entire  army. 

Nor  had  there  been  effusive  welcome  for  the  quiet- 
mannered,  plain-spoken  Westerner  when  Meade,  Han 
cock,  Warren  and  Sedgwick  first  called  to  pay  their 
respects.  They  were  courteous,  subordinate,  thoroughly 
soldierly.  Moreover  they  had  heard  that  "  in  spite  and 
not  because  of "  the  rumors  as  to  Grant's  so-called 
habits,  the  gifted  journalist  and  keen  observer,  sent  by 
a  far  from  friendly  war  secretary  to  closely  watch  every 
thing  that  occurred  at  Grant's  headquarters  and  report 
accordingly,  had  come,  had  seen  and  had  been  con 
quered.  Mr.  Charles  A.  Dana,  ten  years  Grant's  senior, 
had  become  the  stanch  supporter  of  Grant,  and  declared 

284 


l-'roiu  the  collection  of  F.  H.  Meservc 

GENERAL  W.  T.  SHERMAN 


THE  LULL  BEFORE  THE  STORM 

him  in  his  opinion  the  strongest  and  surest  of  our  gen 
erals  in  the  field,  even  though  of  Sherman  he  had  en 
thusiastically  penned  to  Stanton,  "  What  a  splendid 
soldier  he  is ! "  They  came  to  greet  the  new  chief 
loyally,  as  "  the  spirit  of  old  West  Point "  demanded, 
yet  they  would  have  been  less  than  men  had  they  re 
frained  from  curious  study  of  the  newcomer  and  com 
mander,  and  among  their  individual  cronies,  from  a  cer 
tain  confidential  comment.  Quiet,  unassuming,  courteous 
but  not  effusive,  Grant  had  in  turn  welcomed  each  caller, 
chatting  preferably  over  Mexican  war  days  with  Meade 
and  Sedgwick,  of  St  Louis  and  its  hospitable  home 
steads  with  Hancock,  who,  like  Grant,  had  many  a  sweet 
association  with  Jefferson  Barracks.  He  found  at  first 
no  common  ground  with  Warren — who  had  saved  the 
second  day  at  Gettysburg  to  Meade  and  the  army,  and 
had  been  rewarded  by  the  command  of  the  famous  old 
Fifth  Corps,  who  had  dared  to  refrain  from  expected 
attack  on  an  impossible  position  at  Mine  Run,  and  was 
as  yet  an  untried  corps  leader  in  actual  battle.  The 
test  was  to  come  all  too  soon. 

But  it  was  observed  by  those  who  had  been  with  him 
in  the  West  that  Grant  was  not  the  hail-fellow-well-met 
of  the  Army  of  the  Tennessee.  There  it  had  been : 
"  Hello,  Sherman  !  "  "  How  are  you,  McPherson?  "  or 
the  playful  old  army  nickname  by  which  he  hailed 
Macfeely,  or  the  cadet  "  handle "  to  his  classmate 
Quinby.  So  far  as  Sherman,  at  least,  was  concerned, 
too,  the  answering  hail  was  ever  "  Hello,  Grant  "- 
utterly  democratic  and  unmilitary,  but  characteristic  of 
both. 

But  now  he  had  come  to  new  and  strange  and  far 
more  precise  surroundings.  Now,  from  Meade  down, 
except  in  personal  chat  with  some  old  chum,  the  new 
commander  addressed  each  officer  by  his  formal  title, 
save  those  of  his  staff  and  his  deserved  favorites, 
Sheridan  and  James  H.  Wilson.  It  was  noted,  too,  that 

285 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Rawlins,  the  dominant  man  of  the  staff  in  the  West — the 
man  who  stormed  at  anything  and  anybody,  his  chief  not 
excepted,  when  he  believed  matters  were  going  amiss — 
the  man  who  had  not  scrupled  to  smash  even  Grant's 
champagne  at  Vicksburg,  and  who  had  never  shrunk 
from  urging  his  chief  or  dictating  at  times  to  division 
or  even  corps  commanders — was  now  become  somewhat 
silent  and  self  repressive.  Observant  as  ever,  Rawlins 
deferred  more  to  the  commanding  general,  dictated  less 
to  the  staff,  and  domineered  not  at  all.  It  is  well  known 
that  with  three  or  four  exceptions  the  "  military  family  " 
about  the  chief  in  Mississippi  needed  just  such  a  head  as 
Rawlins,  but  now  the  keen  Illinois  soldier-lawyer  found 
himself  surrounded  by  men  of  far  finer  mold  and  char 
acter — regulars  and  West  Pointers,  as  a  rule,  and  both 
among  them  and  in  his  dealings  with  the  generals  of  the 
Potomac,  Rawlins  seemed  no  longer  what  he  assuredly 
was  in  the  West — lord  paramount  at  headquarters.  He 
much  missed  Wilson,  even  though  he  found  in  Horace 
Porter  a  stanch,  but  less  aggressive,  supporter.  He  was 
not  in  good  health.  He  had  remarried,  too,  and  in  con 
scientiously  striving  to  conquer  his  one  evil  propensity 
had  correspondingly  robbed  himself  and  the  nation  of 
that  forcefulness  of  expression  which  had  exerted  such 
marked  influence  for  good  in  the  battlings  of  various 
kinds  in  the  armies  of  the  West. 

There  was,  all  things  considered,  something  of  con 
straint  about  the  new  dispensation  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac,  even  though  there  was  none  of  the  state  and 
style  maintained  in  the  long  days  of  McClellan,  the 
brief  incumbency  of  Burnside,  or  the  vainglorious  reign 
of  "  Fighting  Joe."  With  Meade  came  dignity  and 
courtesy  commingled — except  under  fire.  The  soul  of 
civility  and  consideration  ordinarily,  Meade  was  ab 
solutely  unapproachable  in  battle.  He  seemed  inspired 
with  rage  with  every  one  about  him.  In  this  he  was 
the  antithesis  of  Warren,  who  was  placid,  suave  and 

286 


THE  LULL  BEFORE  THE  STORM 

sweet  mannered  in  the  heat  of  action — and  nowhere 
else.  Until  Warren  got  fairly  into  a  fight  he  was 
captious,  carping,  critical,  faultfinding,  almost  sneering 
— a  man  who  "  got  on  the  nerves  "  of  many  a  staff  officer 
who  came  to  him  with  an  order,  and  it  was  this  unhappy 
trait  that  led  to  the  otherwise  unjust  undoing  of  one 
of  the  best  and  bravest  of  the  corps  commanders  of  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac. 

Even  in  his  personal  appearance  and  equipment  the 
new  commanding  general  had  brought  about  a  change, 
or  some  one  had  done  it  for  him.  Neat  always  as  a  new 
pin,  Grant  nevertheless  wore  his  uniform  loosely,  and 
in  the  West  had  appeared  in  as  few  of  the  "  frills  "  of  his 
rank  as  could  be  dispensed  with.  Now,  as  lieutenant- 
general  commanding  all  the  forces  in  the  field,  he  donned 
the  new  frock  coat,  fairly  bristling  with  buttons, 
ordered  the  absurd  regulation  cape  overcoat  then  pre 
scribed  for  officers  of  all  grades,  bought  the  highest  and 
most  portentous  of  the  black  felt  hats  with  gold  cord 
and  acorn  tips,  then  affected  by  many  of  our  generals, 
ordered  the  costly  horse  furniture,  including  the  blue  and 
gold  schabracque,  and  the  brass  mounted  bridle  pre 
scribed  by  the  regulations  (a  something  at  which  his 
"  horse  sense  "  revolted),  and  the  first  time  he  appeared 
in  saddle  on  the  march  that  beautiful  May  morning,  with 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac  trudging  cheerily  along  to 
Germanna  Ford,  Grant  sat  in  saddle  watching  them  go 
striding  by,  his  new  coat  buttoned  throughout,  his  waist 
girded  with  brand  new  silken  sash  of  buff  net,  and  over 
it  the  gold- striped  belt  of  Russia  leather — all  as  trim 
and  precise  as  any  of  the  Potomac's  own.  Out  West, 
where  he  hailed  from,  Herron  was  about  the  only 
"dandy  "  general,  though  McPherson,  even  in  the  final 
campaign  in  front  of  Atlanta,  was  conspicuous  for  the 
accuracy  of  his  dress  and  equipments.  Grant's  old 
friends  of  Donelson  and  Shiloh  would  have  looked  in 
mild  wonderment  now,  and  the  soldiers  of  the  Army  of 

287 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

the  Potomac,  as  they  trudged  by,  glanced  quickly  up 
from  underneath  the  drooping  visor  of  their  forage 
caps,  trying  to  take  his  measure  as  he  sat  composedly 
smoking. 

Before  they  crossed  that  Virginia  Rubicon,  the 
Rapidan,  it  had  been  settled  that  the  new  general  at 
least  knew  how  to  ride.  Ten  days  later  it  was  said  of 
him  that  he  seemed  to  dread  no  obstacle  as  too  much  for 
his  men.  Later  still,  down  near  the  North  Anna  as 
Horace  Porter  tells  it,  the  soldiers  had  satisfied  them 
selves  that  he  was  as  imperturbable  under  fire  as  in  his 
daily  walks  in  life.  Sitting  placid,  unmoved  and  cross- 
legged  at  the  foot  of  a  tree,  writing  despatches  to  Wash 
ington,  with  the  fragments  of  bursting  shells  hurtling 
about  him,  Grant  attracted  the  attention  of  the  wounded 
of  a  Wisconsin  regiment  being  aided  to  the  rear.  They 
were  doing  no  cheering  just  then  for  anybody,  but  in  his 
own  inimitable  way  the  American  volunteer  gave  audible 
vent  to  his  views  in  the  pithy  vernacular  of  the  camp : 
"  Ulysses  doesn't  scare  worth  a  damn." 

Neither  did  they  cheer  him  as,  after  that  frightful 
progress  to  the  James,  they  swung  out  across  the  long 
pontoons  toward  the  southern  shore.  Cold  Harbor  had 
been  the  final  test  both  for  them  and  for  him.  Never 
again  would  Grant  order  frontal  assault  pushed  home 
upon  Lee's  men  in  force  and  fortified  or  intrenched 
position.  No  good  ever  came  of  it,  and  after  the  ex 
perience  of  Spottsylvania — where,  led  by  a  peerless 
soldier,  Emory  Upton,  the  assaulting  column  pierced 
the  centre  only  to  find  itself  in  a  network  of  intrench- 
ments — Grant's  orders  to  attack  Cold  Harbor  should 
never  have  been  given.  Heaven  knows  they  cost  us 
heavily  and  filled  his  heart  with  sorrow  unutterable. 
And  still  he  pushed  on — on,  ever  relentlessly  on,  until 
brought  to  bay  in  front  of  the  lines  at  Petersburg,  which 
Butler,  "  Baldy  "  Smith,  and  their  men  had  somehow 
failed  to  bag  for  him  as  had  been  hoped  and  planned. 

288 


THE  LULL  BEFORE  THE  STORM 

It  is  said  by  certain  Southern  historians  that  Grant 
had  been  drinking  during  the  campaign  of  the  James. 
This  gives  an  exaggerated  idea  of  the  facts.  There 
were  a  few  occasions  on  which,  as  Porter  tells  us,  late 
at  night  about  the  camp  fire,  his  officers  brewed  a  toddy 
and  the  General  would  take  a  sip.  There  was  one  oc 
casion  after  long  and  heavy  strain,  when  in  presence 
of  Butler  and  "  Baldy  "  Smith  he  took  two  drinks  of 
whiskey  in  the  course  of  an  hour,  and  as  he  declared,  in 
his  utter  frankness,  that  he  had  had  one  before,  the 
effect  was  to  be  expected.  Two  drinks  were  quite 
enough  to  flush  his  face  and  thicken  his  speech,  even 
though  his  vision  and  judgment  might  remain  unim 
paired.  This  incident  was  bruited  to  his  detriment 
within  that  hot  summer  month  of  June,  but  the  War 
Department  could  no  longer  interfere  with  Grant — 
and  the  President  would  not. 

That  summer  of  '64,  however,  had  strained  almost 
to  the  breaking  point  the  faith  the  nation  had  learned  to 
place  in  Grant,  and  had  brought  most  grievous  anxiety 
to  the  administration.  As  the  autumn  wore  on,  with 
no  new  gains  and  not  a  few  reverses  for  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac  (notably  the  affairs  on  the  Weldon  rail 
way),  and  notwithstanding  the  success  of  Sherman  in 
the  West  and  the  triumph  of  Sheridan  in  the  Shenan- 
doah,  "  the  war  is  a  failure  "  was  the  cry  of  the  op 
ponents  of  the  Union  party  all  over  the  North,  and  even 
Abraham  Lincoln  at  a  time  doubted  the  probability  of  his 
re-election.  The  nation  was  stancher  and  stronger  than 
appeared  in  the  public  prints.  November  saw  the  cause 
of  the  Union  vindicated  at  the  polls.  Then  came  the 
meteoric  launch  of  Sherman's  columns  from  Atlanta  to 
the  Sea,  the  utter  collapse  of  Hood's  army  when  Thomas 
struck  it  south  of  Nashville ;  and,  in  the  hope  of  bet 
ter  things  with  the  coming  of  spring,  the  administration 
and  the  people  strove  to  possess  their  souls  in  peace  until 
the  Virginia  roads  were  once  again  passable,  and  the 
19  289 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

armies  about  Richmond  could  hope  to  move.  Meantime, 
little  though  they  knew  it,  the  patience  and  the  fortitude 
of  Grant  himself  had  been  tried  to  the  uttermost,  and  he 
had  been  brought  to  the  brink  of  the  one  wrong  of  his 
career — thus  far,  at  least.  Slow  to  wrath,  patient  and 
just,  it  is  recorded  of  him  that  only  twice  during  the 
entire  war  did  he  lose  his  temper  and  inflict  personal 
rebuke  or  punishment,  once  to  a  coward  in  the  West, 
once  to  a  brute  of  a  teamster  who  was  beating  over  the 
head  a  helpless  horse.  On  this  latter  occasion  Grant 
flung  himself  from  saddle  at  the  sudden  sight,  and  be 
fore  any  of  his  staff  knew  what  was  coming,  had  seized 
the  hulking  fellow  by  the  throat  and  shaken  him  furi 
ously.  All  manner  of  things  Grant  could  see,  smile  at 
and  take  no  offense ;  as  when  a  Western  colonel,  igno 
rant  of  the  General's  immediate  presence,  damned  young 
Fred  for  butting  into  him  at  blundering  gallop ;  as  when 
the  young  newspaper  man,  finding  Grant  and  certain 
of  his  staff  at  breakfast,  seated  himself  uninvited  at  the 
table  with  the  calm  assurance  of  his  years  and  the  re 
mark,  "  I  believe  I'll  take  a  snack  myself,  if  there's  no 
objection."  But,  Grant  could  never  tolerate  a  bully; 
he  hated  a  liar  and  a  coward,  and  the  one  thing  that 
seemed  to  make  him  impatient  was  incapacity  to  act  at 
once  when  orders  required — and  this  trait  led  to  the 
famous,  but  mercifully  arrested,  order  for  the  relief  of 
George  H.  Thomas  on  the  eve  of  the  battle  of  Nash 
ville. 

When  Sherman  started  on  his  renowned  march  to  the 
sea,  his  army  was  thoroughly  "  weeded,"  as  it  were, 
and  everything  not  in  the  very  best  of  condition  was 
left  behind.  Wilson,  sent  by  Grant  to  reorganize  and 
command  the  cavalry  of  the  West,  had  been  ordered  by 
Sherman  to  fit  out  one  division,  Kilpatrick's,  to  ac 
company  the  march.  In  thoroughly  equipping  this  com 
mand,  therefore,  Wilson  practically  stripped  his  own. 
The  depleted  and  dismounted  regiments  were  sent  back 

290 


THE  LULL  BEFORE  THE  STORM 

to  Nashville  to  refit,  to  be  recruited,  if  possible,  and 
rehorsed  as  soon  as  possible.  The  Fourth  and  Twenty-, 
Third  Corps  were  left  to  defend  Tennessee  in  case  Hood 
should  decide  on  a  blow  at  the  North,  rather  than  a 
pursuit  of  Sherman.  George  H.  Thomas  had  been 
chosen  to  head  the  Union  forces,  consisting  of  two  small 
corps,  a  number  of  broken-up  commands,  and  a  lot  of 
broken-down  men.  A  better  defensive  fighter  had  not 
been  developed  in  the  entire  war,  but  he  had  to  im 
provise  much  of  his  defensive  army. 

Later  in  November,  long  before  Wilson  had  suc 
ceeded,  even  by  strenuous  efforts,  in  getting  remounts 
for  his  cavalry,  the  Southern  force  came  sweeping  north 
ward,  driving  before  it  the  two  corps  led  by  Stanley  and 
Schofield,  inferior  in  numbers  and  lacking  cavalry  sup 
port.  Hood's  generals  included  such  distinguished 
division  chiefs  as  "  Pat "  Cleburne,  Cheatham,  Stewart 
and  Stephen  D.  Lee,  and  his  horsemen  were  led  by  N.  B. 
Forrest,  than  whom  there  was  no  more  aggressive 
trooper,  north  or  south.  Back  from  the  line  of  the 
Duck  River  the  Southern  general  drove  the  Union  corps, 
many  of  Schofield's  narrowly  escaping  capture  as  they 
slipped  past  Hood's  encircling  arms  at  Spring  Hill.  At 
the  Harpeth  Schofield  and  Stanley  halted  and  faced 
about.  Strong  entrenchments  covered  the  approaches 
to  the  little  town  of  Franklin.  Here  that  dull  Novem 
ber  afternoon  was  fought  a  battle  furious  in  its  char 
acter  and  fearful  in  its  casualties.  Time  and  again 
Hood's  veterans  charged  the  Union  lines,  only  to  be 
mowed  down  by  hundreds,  to  suffer  almost  irreparable 
loss  in  generals,  field  officers,  and  in  men.  No  less  than 
six  of  Hood's  division  or  brigade  leaders  fell  dead  along 
that  blazing  front — gallant  Cleburne  among  them — and 
so  tremendous  was  the  punishment  administered  that 
when  finally  Schofield  and  Stanley  resumed  their  north 
ward  march  to  join  Thomas  at  Nashville,  they  were 
practically  unpursued,  save  by  Forrest's  vigilant 

291 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

troopers,  and  even  these  were  held  at  respectful  dis- 
stance.  Franklin  took  the  heart  out  of  Hood's  army  for 
the  time  being:  Nashville,  which  speedily  followed, 
utterly  destroyed  it. 

Yet  when  Hood's  colors  appeared  along  the  line  of 
the  Brentwood  Hills,  some  five  miles  to  the  south  of 
Nashville,  and  the  now  cautious  general  proceeded  to 
the  investment  of  the  state  capital,  the  garrison  was 
still  in  no  condition  for  aggressive  fight.  Men  enough 
to  defend  the  fortifications  had  Thomas,  and  that  was 
all.  Moreover,  for  the  moment,  it  was  quite  enough. 
The  bloody  and  disastrous  assaults  at  Franklin  had 
taught  Hood  never  again  to  attack  the  Union  lines.  He 
sat  him  down  in  sight  of  the  capital  and  waited,  while 
Thomas  was  bending  every  effort  to  gather  about  him 
the  widely  dispersed  forces  of  his  military  domain,  and 
while  Wilson,  with  all  the  vim  and  energy  of  his  nature, 
was  calling  in  the  cavalrymen  of  the  neighboring  states 
and  getting  them,  somehow,  anyhow,  into  saddle. 
Horses  had  to  be  had  at  any  cost.  Far  and  near  his 
foragers  impressed  the  private  stock  of  friend  or  foe. 
The  vice-president  elect,  still  a  citizen  of  Tennessee, 
and  one  of  the  "  political "  brigadiers  of  the  volunteer 
army,  found  himself  bereft  of  his  own  carriage  team. 
But  Wilson  knew  the  supreme  importance  of  the  oc 
casion:  Cavalry  in  sufficient  numbers  must  be  im 
provised  against  these  experts  of  Forrest.  It  was  the 
first  of  December  when  the  victors  of  Franklin  fell 
back  into  the  lines  of  Nashville.  It  was  December  2nd 
when  Forrest's  guidons  fluttered  into  view  along  the 
southward  heights.  By  December  3rd  Hood's  whole 
army  was  lined  up  against  the  works  of  Nashville,  the 
great  supply  depot  and  strategic  centre  of  the  south 
west,  and  by  December  5th  the  Northern  press,  never 
too  wise,  was  clamoring  for  a  "  knock  out."  Gold  was 
still  soaring.  Sherman  was  swallowed  up  somewhere 
in  Georgia.  Grant's  army  was  stopped  in  front  of 

292 


THE  LULL  BEFORE  THE  STORM 

Petersburg.  The  people  were  impatient,  unreasoning, 
unreasonable;  the  administration  was  worried  and 
harassed;  the  President  looked  haggard;  the  Secretary 
of  War,  never  saintly  in  temperament,  had  worked  him 
self  into  a  frenzy  of  nervous  irritability.  Even  Grant, 
who  was  just  returning  from  a  triumphant  visit  to 
New  York — whither  family  matters  had  called  him, 
and  where  all  Gotham  thronged  to  do  him  honor  and 
vainly  besought  him  for  a  speech — began  to  worry 
under  the  rain  of  question,  suggestion  and  criticism. 
"  Thomas  must  attack  and  destroy  Hood  at  once,"  was 
the  burden  of  the  cry,  "  or  Hood  will  be  crossing  the 
Cumberland  and  sweeping  on  the  Ohio." 

By  December  6th  Thomas  had  over  fifty  thousand 
infantry  and  artillery,  but  his  cavalry  was  still  far  in 
ferior  in  number  to  Forrest's,  and  Thomas  and  Wilson 
knew  the  importance  of  cavalry  in  the  attack  of 
Southern  troops  in  position,  against  whom  a  frontal 
assault,  unsupported  by  attack  in  flank,  was  a  well- 
nigh  hopeless  proposition.  Wilson  had  assured  Thomas 
that  by  December  7th  or  8th  he  would  have  remounted 
almost  every  horseman,  and  could  probably  put  ten 
thousand  riders  into  the  field.  His  men  were  in  the 
"  remount "  camps  on  the  north  bank,  over  against 
Nashville.  His  five  thousand  effectives  were  getting 
rested  and  reshod  after  the  strenuous  work  against 
Forrest.  Hood  was  showing  no  disposition  to  attack, 
or  even  to  reach  round  the  flanks  and  reconnoitre  the 
Cumberland.  There  could  be  no  reinforcements  of 
consequence  coming  to  him.  Everything  else  in  the 
extreme  south  had  been  hurried  off  to  oppose  Sherman, 
yet  by  December  6th  the  War  Department  and  the 
press  of  the  -North  were  in  a  mad  rage  of  impatience 
with  Thomas.  Gone  and  forgotten  were  the  plaudits 
that  followed  Mill  Springs,  Chickamauga,  Missionary 
Ridge ;  gone  and  forgotten  were  the  tributes,  public  and 
private,  to  his  sound  judgment  and  superb  soldiership. 

293 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Even  Grant,  usually  stolid,  having  begun  to  urge  and 
prod,  was  now  demanding.  At  a  distance  of  something 
like  a  thousand  miles  from  the  field,  Grant,  Halleck  and 
Stanton  were  sure  they  better  saw  and  understood  the 
entire  situation  than  did  Thomas  on  the  spot — Thomas 
who  had  got  Hood  precisely  where  he  wanted  him,  far 
from  possible  support,  far  from  his  impoverished  base, 
and  who  fully  meant,  if  given  a  few  days'  time  and  ten 
thousand  cavalry,  to  fall  upon  that  venturesome  leader 
and  wreck  him  utterly. 

But  meantime  the  fates  had  conspired  with  adverse 
influences  in  Washington  and  at  Grant's  headquarters 
toward  the  undoing  of  Thomas  himself — the  man  of 
men  in  the  Army  of  the  West — "  the  noblest  Roman 
of  them  all." 

Early  as  December  2nd  Stanton  had  wired  Grant: 

"  The  President  feels  solicitous  about  the  disposition  of  Gen 
eral  Thomas  to  lay  (sic)  in  fortifications  for  an  indefinite  period 
until  Wilson  gets  equipments.  This  looks  like  the  McClellan 
and  Rosecrans  strategy  of  do-nothing  and  let  the  rebels  raid 
the  country." 

And  Grant  had  wired  Thomas  before  Hood  had 
been  there  more  than  half  a  day: 

"  If  Hood  is  permitted  to  remain  quietly  about  Nashville 
you  will  lose  all  the  road  back  to  Chattanooga.  .  .  .  Should 
he  attack  you  it  is  all  well,  but  if  he  does  not,  you  should 
attack  him  before  he  fortifies." 

And  later  the  same  day,  December  2nd : 

"With  your  citizen  employes  armed  you  can  move  out  of 
Nashville  and  force  the  enemy  to  retire  or  fight  upon  ground 
of  your  own  choosing.  .  .  .  You  will  now  suffer  incalculable 
injury  upon  your  railroad  if  Hood  is  not  speedily  disposed  of. 
Put  forth,  therefore,  every  possible  exertion  to  attain  this 
end." 

To  this  and  to  similar  urgings  from  Halleck,  Thomas 
replied,  giving  the  situation  in  full,  saying  that  he  had 

294 


THE  LULL  BEFORE  THE  STORM 

now  sufficient  infantry,  but  setting  forth  that  in  order 
to  dispose  of  Hood  effectively  he  must  have  cavalry, 
and  that  he  would  have  enough  in  two  or  three  days. 

On  December  3rd  Thomas  had  again  assured  Hal- 
leek  by  wire  that  Hood  was  quiescent,  that  there  would 
be  ten  thousand  cavalry  in  saddle  in  less  than  a  week, 
and  then  he  could  and  would  take  care  of  Hood.  But 
it  seems  that  assurance  was  insufficient.  Halleck  in 
sisted,  December  5th,  that  no  less  than  twenty-two 
thousand  horses  had  been  issued  to  the  cavalry  since 
September  2Oth,  and  at  8  P.M.  on  the  5th  Grant  again 
urged  Thomas  to  action,  and  again  Thomas,  patiently 
but  cogently,  said :  "  I  do  not  think  it  prudent  to  attack 
Hood  with  less  than  six  thousand  cavalry  to  cover  my 
flanks."  Then  later  on,  December  6th,  as  though 
Washington  and  City  Point  could  no  longer  brook  the 
delay,  Grant  wired  at  4  P.M.  :  "  Attack  Hood  at  once 
and  wait  no  longer  for  a  remount  of  your  cavalry." 

To  this  there  could  be  only  one  reply — prompt  ac 
ceptance  of  the  order.  Back  came  Thomas's  despatch : 
"  I  will  make  the  necessary  disposition  and  attack  Hood 
at  once."  It  came  late  at  night  on  the  6th,  and  all  day 
of  the  7th  Thomas  and  his  aides  were  busily  occupied 
with  the  details  of  the  attack  in  force.  Frontal  attack 
on  Hood's  intrenched  lines,  as  has  been  said,  was  not 
to  be  thought  of,  and  Grant,  who  had  tried  such  attack 
with  disastrous  result  at  Spottsylvania  and  Cold  Harbor, 
might  have  known  it.  Thomas's  plan  from  the  first 
had  been  to  send  Wilson  with  at  least  six  thousand 
troopers  out  to  the  southwest  to  circle  Hood's  left 
flank  and  rear,  to  push  the  Twenty-third  Corps  far  out 
on  the  heels  of  Wilson,  to  attack  from  the  west,  and 
then  when  the  Southern  flank  had  been  crumbled,  to 
turn  the  partial  attack  of  his  centre  and  left  into  an 
assault  in  force. 

Wilson  and  his  men  had  still  to  be  moved  over 
from  the  north  bank.  It  all  took  time,  and  Stanton 

295 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

waxed  well-nigh  frantic.  "  Thomas  seems  unwilling 
to  attack  because  it  is  hazardous,  as  if  all  war  was  any 
thing  but  hazardous.  If  he  wait  for  Wilson  to  get 
ready  Gabriel  will  be  blowing  his  last  horn,"  was  Stan- 
ton's  wire  to  Grant,  on  the  morning  of  December  7th, 
and  such  his  reference  to  two  of  the  very  best  officers 
that  ever  fought. 

And  then  said  Grant  over  the  wires  to  Washington : 
"  You  probably  saw  my  orders  to  Thomas  to  attack. 
If  he  does  not  do  it  promptly  I  would  recommend 
superseding  him  by  Schofield,  leaving  Thomas  subor 
dinate." 

On  the  evening  of  the  8th  there  came  a  despatch 
to  Washington,  not  from  Thomas  or  one  in  authority, 
but  from  a  captain  in  the  quartermaster's  department, 
to  the  effect  that  the  enemy  had  a  large  force  of  artillery 
along  the  south  bank  of  the  Cumberland  below  Nash 
ville,  also  that  the  "  rebel  general  Lyon  holds  the  same 
bank,  but  does  not  fight  gunboats."  And  though 
Thomas  had  gunboats  and  cavalry  patrolling  the 
Cumberland,  closely  watching  for  any  indication  of 
an  intent  to  cross,  and  finding  none,  the  administration 
and  Grant,  too,  became  possessed  with  the  conviction 
that  Hood  was  planning  to  send  Forrest  across  the 
Cumberland,  and  to  follow  in  his  tracks,  whereas  Hood 
was  doing  the  very  opposite.  On  December  6th  he  had 
sent  Forrest  with  most  of  his  cavalry,  backed  by  a 
strong  division  of  infantry,  to  Murfreesboro,  four  days' 
march  away.  Yet  on  the  8th  Grant  would  have  it  that 
Hood  was  bent  on  crossing  the  Cumberland,  and  wir 
ing  Thomas  again :  "  By  all  means  avoid  the  con 
tingency  of  a  foot  race  to  see  which,  you  or  Hood,  can 
beat  to  the  Ohio."  Then  as  Thomas  on  the  spot  could 
not  be  made  to  see  that  Hood  was  trying  to  cross,  there 
was  sent  to  Washington,  at  noon  on  the  Qth  of  Decem 
ber,  Grant's  despatch :  "  No  attack  yet  made  by  Thomas. 

296 


THE  LULL  BEFORE  THE  STORM 

Please  telegraph  orders  relieving  him  at  once  and  plac 
ing  Schofield  in  command." 

Had  that  order  been  carried  out,  and  Thomas  de 
posed  at  the  moment  when  his  plans  were  complete  and 
his  forces  prepared  for  action,  a  wrong  irreparable 
would  have  been  done,  yet  such  was  the  attitude  of  the 
administration,  of  the  press,  and  of  the  general  public 
at  the  moment,  that  it  probably  would  have  been  ap 
plauded.  Even  Halleck,  who  believed  in  Thomas  and 
who  had  exalted  him  above  Grant  at  Corinth,  had  that 
day  wired  him  of  Grant's  extreme  dissatisfaction.  "If 
you  wait  till  General  Wilson  mounts  all  his  cavalry, 
you  will  wait  till  doomsday,"  he  said,  and  Thomas,  loyal 
and  subordinate  to  the  last,  sent  his  soldierly  and 
tempered  reply :  "  I  regret  that  General  Grant  should 
feel  dissatisfaction  at  my  delay  in  attacking  the  enemy.  I 
feel  conscious  that  I  have  done  everything  in  my  power 
to  prepare,  and  that  the  troops  could  not  have  been  got 
ten  ready  before  this,  and  if  he  should  order  me  re 
lieved  I  will  submit  without  a  murmur.  A  terrible 
storm  of  freezing  rain  has  come  on  since  daylight  which 
will  render  an  attack  impossible  until  it  breaks." 

On  the  same  day,  December  Qth,  Thomas  had  also 
telegraphed  Grant  direct :  "  I  had  nearly  completed  my 
preparations  to  attack  to-morrow  morning,  but  a  ter 
rible  storm  of  freezing  rain  has  come  on  to-day  which 
will  make  it  impossible  for  us  to  fight  to  any  advantage. 
.  .  .  Major-General  Halleck  informs  me  you  are 
very  much  dissatisfied  with  my  delay  in  attacking.  I 
can  only  say  I  have  done  all  in  my  power  to  prepare, 
and  if  you  should  deem  it  necessary  to  relieve  me  I  shall 
submit  without  a  murmur." 

That  freezing  storm  lasted  three  days  and  nights, 
sheeting  the  fields  and  hillsides  in  a  glare  of  ice  on  which 
horses  slipped  and  fell,  and  men  could  not  keep  their 
footing.  It  swept  the  valley  of  the  Cumberland,  an  icy 
blast,  a  pitiless,  drenching,  slanting  deluge  that  stung  as 

297 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

it  struck  and  froze  as  it  fell  and  sent  men  and  beasts 
cowering  to  cover.  It  would  have  been  impossible  to 
march  a  squadron  of  cavalry  in  face  of  it,  and  the  men 
afoot  could  hardly  crawl.  When  first  informed  of  the 
new  reason  for  delay,  Grant  wired  suspending  the 
order  for  Thomas's  relief  "  until  it  is  seen  whether  he 
will  do  anything,"  yet  with  what  seems  to  have  been  a 
growing  conviction  that  Thomas  would  not  strike  no 
matter  what  the  weather,  for,  after  waiting  all  day 
long  on  the  loth,  hearing  nothing  but  further  details 
of  the  storm,  and  all  the  morning  of  the  nth,  Grant 
could  stand  it  no  longer.  At  4  P.M.  he  wired  direct: 
"  Let  there  be  no  further  delay.  I  am  in  hopes  of  re 
ceiving  word  from  you  to-day  announcing  that  you  have 
moved.  Delay  no  longer  for  weather  or  reinforce 
ments."  To  which  at  10.30  P.M.  Thomas  replied :  "  I 
will  obey  as  promptly  as  possible.  .  .  .  The  whole 
country  is  covered  with  a  perfect  sheet  of  ice  and  sleet. 
...  .  I  would  have  done  so  (attacked)  yesterday  had 
it  not  been  for  the  storm." 

It  was  the  last  of  Thomas's  despatches  to  his  now 
utterly  un-Grantlike  chief.  The  storm  was  still  raging 
in  Tennessee,  but  all  was  quiet  on  the  Potomac,  save  in 
the  neighborhood  of  Stanton.  The  I2th  of  December 
passed  without  change  at  Nashville,  and  the  1 3th  found 
Grant  at  City  Point,  unable  longer  to  control  his  im 
patience  or  himself.  It  must  be  owned  that  he  had  been 
subjected  to  severe  strain.  Now,  issuing  orders  for 
General  John  A.  Logan  to  go  at  once  to  Nashville,  and 
then,  before  Logan  could  have  gone  half  way,  Grant 
decided  himself  to  follow;  steamed  around  to  the 
Potomac  and  up  to  Washington,  where,  on  the  evening 
of  the  1 5th,  he  had  a  conference  with  the  President, 
Stanton  and  Halleck,  insisting  now  on  the  immediate 
relief  of  Thomas,  then  hastened  to  his  room  at  Wil- 
lard's  to  prepare  for  the  journey  by  special  train,  and 
was  stopped  at  or  about  n  o'clock  by  the  telegraphic 

298 


THE  LULL  BEFORE  THE  STORM 

tidings  that  Thomas  at  last  had  struck,  that  Hood's  left 
wing  was  crushed.  Turning  to  a  trusted  friend,  Grant 
removed  for  a  moment  the  inevitable  cigar  from  his 
lips,  quietly  remarked,  "  I  guess  we'll  not  go  after  all," 
then  sat  him  down,  and,  true  to  his  truthful  self,  wired 
Thomas  that  he  was  on  his  way  to  Nashville,  but  now 
in  view  of  Thomas's  splendid  success  would  go  no 
further.  To  this  he  added  his  hearty  congratulations. 
And  yet  Thomas's  splendid  success  was  at  that  time 
only  a  moiety  of  the  still  more  splendid  success  of  the 
i6th.  With  Wilson  and  his  cavalry  whirling  ever  upon 
Hood's  left  and  rear,  capturing  battery  after  battery, 
taking  in  reverse  one  position  after  another,  doing 
everywhere  the  lion's  share  of  the  work  and  proving  be 
yond  peradventure  Thomas's  claim,  that  without  cavalry 
decisive  victory,  if  not  successful  attack,  had  been  im 
possible,  the  great  defensive  fighter  of  the  West  had  be 
come  the  irresistibly  aggressive  leader  who,  by  night 
fall  of  the  second  day,  had  captured  half  the  guns  of 
the  Southern  host,  and  sent  the  beaten  battalions  of 
Hood's  hard  fighting  army  fleeing  for  their  lives  back 
to  the  sorrowing  land  from  which  they  came,  Wilson 
and  his  exultant  troopers  hacking  furiously  at  their 
heels,  that  young  whirlwind  of  a  leader  himself  head 
ing  charge  after  charge,  and  holding  up  far  to  the  south 
of  the  abandoned  field  only  long  enough  to  receive  from 
Thomas  in  person  most  fervent  thanks  and  congratula 
tion,  and  to  hear  the  nearest  approach  to  an  expletive 
that  ever  fell  from  those  bearded  lips — pure  of  speech 
as  ever  were  Grant's—"  Dang  it  to  hell,  Wilson,  didn't 
I  say  we  could  lick  'em  ?  " 


CHAPTER  XXX 
OBSTACLES   AND  DELAYS 

WHEN  Grant  set  forth  for  Germanna  Ford  as  the 
head  of  the  armies  of  the  United  States,  he  appeared, 
as  Porter  tells  us,  in  complete  uniform.  Somebody,  too 
— probably  his  most  potent  counsellor,  Julia  Dent — had 
persuaded  him  to  wear  thread  gloves  as  more  elegant 
than  buckskin,  but  by  the  third  day  little  was  left  of 
the  gloves,  and  riding  gauntlets  reappeared.  By  the 
same  time,  too,  he  had  found  sash  and  sword  more  or 
less  in  his  way,  as  he  was  frequently  dismounting, 
pencilling  orders  and  despatches,  or  squatting  cross- 
legged  on  the  ground  with  his  pad  on  his  left  forearm, 
or  a  knee,  and  his  cigar  gripped  in  his  teeth.  A  week 
in  the  Wilderness  had  taken  much  of  the  "  style  "  out  of 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  Men  were  ridding  them 
selves  of  overcoats  and  even  blankets,  so  as  to  "  march 
light."  Officers  were  shedding  sashes  and  throwing 
loose  their  coats.  Grant  hated  a.  buttoned-up  uniform 
and  wore  his  as  loosely  as  possible,  finally  shifting  with 
a  sigh  of  satisfaction  into  the  loose-fitting  sack  of  blue 
flannel,  suggested  by  some  level-headed  staff  officer  as 
more  seasonable  for  hot  weather.  By  the  time  they 
crossed  the  James  the  general-in-chief  was  about  as 
unpretentious  a  soldier  in  personal  appearance  as  rode 
in  that  entire  array.  Even  in  his  general's  coat  he 
could  hardly  have  been  impressive,  as  it  is  recorded  that 
he  encountered  one  morning  a  small  drove  of  beef  cat 
tle  headed  obstinately  the  wrong  way,  and  a  perspiring 
herder  shouted  to  him,  "  Say,  stranger,  just  shoo  them 
back  there,  will  you?"  And  Grant,  schooled  from 
babyhood  in  the  ways  of  the  farm,  "  shooed  "  as  re 
quested  and  shooed  to  some  purpose. 

300 


OBSTACLES  AND  DELAYS 

But  while  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  saw  little  to  call 
for  admiration  in  the  general  appearance  of  the  man 
from  the  West,  there  was  one  thing  every  horseman 
noted,  and  that  was  his  riding.  A  surer  seat  could  not 
be  found,  even  among  the  "  dandy "  riders  of  the 
cavalry  corps.  No  matter  how  his  mount  might 
flounder,  shy  or  stumble,  Grant  was  "  with  him  "  and 
quick  to  gather  and  sustain.  Yet  in  mounting  and  dis 
mounting  his  was  a  method  of  neither  the  school  nor 
the  army.  Grant  swung  out  of  saddle  without  the  pre 
liminary  hold  of  the  pommel,  and  in  mounting  seldom 
if  ever  found  it  necessary  to  grasp  the  lock  of  the  mane 
or  more  than  lay  hand  on  pommel  or  cantle.  Once  he 
had  his  toe  in  the  stirrup  a  mere  straightening  of  the 
leg  seemed  to  do  the  rest.  In  an  instant  he  was  seated 
lightly  in  saddle,  and  once  there  was  entirely  at  home. 
"  Posting  "  at  the  trot,  except  with  an  English  saddle 
and  the  flat  seat,  was  something  unheard  of  in  those 
days,  and  the  old  "  Grimsley,"  now  in  its  glass  case  at 
the  Historical  Society  Library  in  Chicago,  was  still  in 
'64  Grant's  favorite  saddle.  The  ponderous  housings 
were  far  too  hot  for  the  summer  campaign  and  were 
discarded  until  the  staff  settled  down  at  City  Point. 
Then  "  Cincinnati "  sometimes  appeared  in  the  official 
robes,  at  which  Grant  more  than  once  made  a  wry  face. 
A  horse,  he  said,  had  quite  enough  to  carry  on  parade 
or  march  "  without  all  that  weighty  jimcrackery." 
Another  thing  Grant  had  little  use  for  was  a  military 
band.  Every  regiment  originally  had  one,  and  greatly 
did  some  of  them  add  to  the  cheer  and  spirit  of  the 
camp  or  march ;  but  before  the  third  year  only  brigade 
bands  were  allowed,  and  even  these  in  Grant's  ears  were 
too  much  of  a  good  thing.  "What's  the  joke?"  he 
asked,  the  day  the  army  emerged  from  the  thickets  and 
struck  out  for  the  open  fields  of  Spottsylvania,  and  a 
band  had  burst  into  joyous  music  and  the  retinue  of 
staff  officers  into  a  laugh.  "  They're  playing  '  Ain't  I 

301 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Glad  to  Get  Out  of  the  Wilderness?'"  was  the  an 
swer,  and  Grant,  who  frankly  owned  he  knew  only  one 
tune  and  was  not  sure  of  that,  grinned  and  shrugged  his 
shoulders.  Later,  when  an  ambitious  leader,  eager  to 
do  him  honor,  came  with  his  band  and  struck  up 
triumphant  music  close  to  headquarters,  the  command 
ing  general  grimly  stood  it  a  moment  or  two,  then  whim 
sically  begged  that  the  "noise  "  might  be  stopped,  as 
there  were  matters  of  importance  on  which  he  wished 
to  hear  and  speak,  and  the  bandmaster  doubtless  felt 
deeply  aggrieved. 

There  was  another  adjunct  to  our  military  progress 
through  Virginia  toward  which  Grant  felt  antipathy, 
due  in  great  measure  to  his  evil  treatment  at  the  hands 
of  the  newspapers  in  the  West.  Sherman,  as  far  as  he 
possibly  could,  had  banished  correspondents  from  the 
lines  of  his  army,  but  Grant  found  the  Army  of  the 
Press  strongly  intrenched  in  and  about  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac.  Some  of  these  recorders  of  public  events 
were  great  and  gifted,  most  of  them  tried  to  be  just  and 
fair;  many  of  them  were,  however,  ignorant  of  military 
methods,  and  all  of  them  were  imbued  with  such  zeal  in 
the  service  of  their  respective  papers  (and  every  paper 
of  any  standing  at  home  had  its  special  correspond 
ent  somewhere  at  the  front)  that  "  exclusive "  and 
important  information  sometimes  found  its  way  into 
print  in  spite  of  injury  to  the  army  and  aid  afforded 
the  foe. 

Now,  while  Grant  had  about  him  as  staff  officers  in 
Rawlins,  Rowley,  Bowers  and  Horace  Porter  a  quar 
tette  of  strong,  silent,  reliable  men,  he  had  had,  as  has 
been  told,  a  number  of  detrimentals,  most  of  whom  had 
been  discarded  ere  he  left  the  West,  yet  one  or  two 
weak  vessels  were  still  with  him  when  the  forward  move 
began.  Correspondents,  known  to  be  such,  were  not 
harbored  at  headquarters  of  the  army;  nevertheless, 
there  seemed  to  be  "  leaks."  Correspondents  were 

302 


OBSTACLES  AND  DELAYS 

numerous  among  the  camp  fires  of  the  army  and  hover 
ing  about  the  outskirts  of  that  sacred  little  bailiwick 
wherein  Rawlins  sat,  lynx-eyed,  yet  not  as  forceful 
as  in  the  West.  Grant  had  "  grown,"  was  conscious  of 
his  power,  and  constantly  in  correspondence  with  the 
President  and  the  Secretary  of  War,  and  Rawlins  could 
not  presume  now,  as  presume  he  had,  with  reason  and 
good  effect,  in  the  West.  Distinguished  visitors  came 
not  infrequently  from  Washington,  and  brought  friends 
with  them  and  introduced  them  at  Grant's  headquarters. 
Among  these  came  Elihu  B.  Washburne,  still  representa 
tive  of  the  Galena  district  in  Congress,  and  here  at  least 
was  a  man  even  Rawlins  could  welcome  with  open  arms. 
And  Washburne  brought  with  him  a  friend  whom  he 
introduced  as  Mr.  Swinton,  and  told  Grant  he  was  an 
accomplished  literary  gentleman  desirous  of  riding  with 
the  army,  "  in  order  that  he  might  write  its  history  at 
the  end  of  the  war."  Mr.  Swinton  was  welcomed  as 
Washburne's  friend  so  long  as  Washburne  stayed, 
which  was  only  until  after  the  first  few  days  of  fierce 
battling  in  the  Wilderness.  It  is  not  unlikely  that 
this  now  famous  historian  hoped  and  expected  that 
Washburne's  introduction  would  be  an  open  sesame  to 
the  doors  of  Grant's  headquarters'  mess.  But  Swinton 
was  already  known  to  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  as  one 
of  the  most  active  and  gifted  of  the  correspondents  in 
the  field,  and  beyond  the  tin  plate,  cup  and  camp  chair 
indulged  in  by  the  staff,  no  accommodations  were  fur 
nished  Mr.  Swinton,  and  these  probably  only  for  a  day 
or  two  until  he  could  make  permanent  arrangements 
with  some  of  his  press  associates.  It  may  be  that,  being 
eminent  in  his  profession,  Mr.  Swinton  resented  it  that 
the  commanding  general  did  not  make  him  a  member  of 
the  military  household,  but  certain  it  is  he  speedily  made 
himself  persona  ingrata  and  an  impossibility  at  head 
quarters. 

The  night  of  May  3rd  Grant  had  called   Colonel 
303 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Rowley,  who  was  to  be  officer  on  duty  until  dawn,  and 
given  him  some  detailed  instructions  and  information. 
To  Grant's  amaze,  he  read  them  reported  verbatim  in 
the  columns  of  a  Richmond  paper  three  days  there 
after.  It  was  bad  enough  that  they  should  appear  in 
the  columns  of  the  Northern  press,  but  that  which  was 
furnished  one  was  almost  instantly,  in  '64,  made  known 
to  the  other. 

A  night  or  two  later  General  Meade  came  to  confer 
with  Grant.  The  officers  of  the  staff  hospitably  greeted 
those  with  Meade  and  drew  them  off  to  the  camp  fire 
in  order  that  the  chiefs  might  talk  in  private.  Not  five 
minutes  later,  sharp-eyed  little  Bowers  caught  sight  of 
what  seemed  to  be  a  human  form  crouching  near  to  the 
tent  in  which  sat  the  generals  in  low-toned  conference, 
and  easily  within  earshot.  "  Who's  that  ? "  he  de 
manded,  sharply,  of  Rowley,  big  and  muscular,  and 
Rowley,  striding  thither  at  once,  found  a  civilian 
squatted  against  a  little  tree,  grabbed  him  by  the  coat  col 
lar,  jerked  him  to  his  feet,  with  Western  frankness 
expressing  his  opinion  and  with  equal  emphasis  de 
manding  the  meaning,  of  such  conduct.  The  intruder 
was  Mr.  Swinton,  and  the  result  Mr.  Swinton's  exclu 
sion  from  the  charmed  circle  at  headquarters  for  all 
time.  Grant  says  he  never  saw  him  again,  but  was 
shortly  called  upon  to  save  his  life.  A  few  weeks  later 
General  Meade  came  spurring  to  headquarters  in  great 
haste  and  some  agitation.  Burnside,  commanding  a 
separate  force  and  not  under  Meade's  direct  orders,  had 
found  fresh  occasion  to  look  upon  Mr.  Swinton  as  a 
pernicious  and  prolific  source  of  information  to  the 
enemy,  had  arrested  Swinton  forthwith  and,  as  em 
powered  by  the  custom  of  war  in  like  cases,  had  ordered 
him  summarily  shot.  These  were  strenuous  days  in  the 
history  of  the  great  republic,  and  even  the  press  had 
sometimes  to  be  chastened  for  sin  against  the  common 
cause.  But  the  nation  was  then  in  straits.  Stern 

304 


OBSTACLES  AND  DELAYS 

measures  had  to  be  adopted,  and  though  Grant  promptly 
issued  orders  staying  the  shooting,  he  no  longer  stayed 
the  order  sending  Mr.  Swinton  North.  It  is  a  whimsical 
illustration  of  our  American  methods  that  the  next  time 
the  nation  became  involved  in  a  general  war  "  the  boot 
was  on  the  other  foot."  The  nation  was  not  in  straits 
in  '99.  Stern  methods  were  regarded  as  unnecessary 
by  the  press,  at  least,  and  the  general  commanding  the 
forces  of  the  United  States  on  foreign  soil  had  his  face 
summarily  slapped  in  presence  of  his  staff  by  a  cor 
respondent  with  whom  he  had  presumed  to  differ. 

And  correspondents  were  not  the  only  men  to  do 
Grant  injury  in  many  a  way.  Even  soldiers  whom  he 
had  most  befriended  turned  spitefully  upon  him  and 
found  ready  listeners  at  Washington.  It  was  one  of 
these  that  very  summer  of  '64  who,  owing  very  much 
to  Grant,  repaid  him  grievously.  One  of  the  McClellan 
clique  of  the  old  Army  of  the  Potomac — an  unsuc 
cessful,  even  if  able,  division  commander — he  had  found 
himself  at  Chattanooga  without  a  command,  when  Grant 
set  him  on  his  feet,  gave  opportunity  to  his  unquestioned 
talents,  rewarded  him  by  soldierly  praise  and  endorse 
ment,  and  finally  won  over  a  reluctant  and  long  obstruc 
tive  Senate  to  the  confirmation  of  his  promotion  to  the 
double  stars. 

When  it  later  transpired  that  this  officer  could  not 
subordinately  serve  under  Butler,  for  which  there  may 
have  been  some  excuse,  and  would  persist  in  vehement 
criticism  of  Meade,  for  which  there  could  be  none, 
Grant  realized  that  in  estimating  the  real  value  of  the 
man  the  Senate  had  been  right  and  he  had  been  wrong, 
and  therefore  released  him  from  service  with  the  army 
at  the  front  without  formally  relieving  him.  The  next 
thing  known  was  that  a  prominent  senator  had  a  letter 
from  this  officer  setting  forth  that  Grant  took  whiskey 
and  was  perceptibly  drunk  the  day  he  came  with  Gen 
eral  Butler  to  visit  him  at  his  headquarters.  General 
20  305 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Butler,  he  declared,  noted  Grant's  condition  and  would 
surely  make  use  of  it.  This,  it  may  be  said  right  here, 
General  Butler  did  not  and  would  not  do,  even  after 
he  himself  had  been  relieved  from  his  command  by 
Grant.  Savagely  as  he  attacked  Grant  in  his  later 
speeches  and  writings,  and  heartily  as  he  hated  him, 
Butler  declared  that  he  had  not  seen  him  either  drink  or 
drunk. 

And  finally  it  was  this  officer  who,  long  years  later, 
published  his  Memoirs  of  service  in  the  West  and  East, 
and  as  an  appendix  printed  that  remarkable  and  pathetic 
appeal,  penned  by  Rawlins  in  the  dead  of  night  when 
he  thought  his  chief  lay  sleeping  off  the  effects  of  liquor, 
though  it  transpired  that  Grant  was  really  ill,  that  the 
liquor  he  had  seen  him  drink  at  Sherman's  headquarters 
was  prescribed  by  the  senior  medical  officer  there  on 
duty,  and  that  the  wine  bottles  which  stood  upon  the 
table  near  Grant's  cabin  door  had  been  emptied  by 
bibulous  members  of  the  staff.  Barring  a  certain  hesi 
tancy  in  expressing  himself  in  writing  that  evening, 
Rawlins  had  seen  no  other  indication  that  Grant  was 
drinking,  but  his  anxiety  was  ever  keen,  his  zeal  was 
vigilant,  his  friendship  and  loyalty  unbounded,  and  who 
could  blame  him? 

On  the  other  hand,  who  can  commend  the  publica 
tion  of  such  a  letter  by  one  who  had  once  enjoyed  the 
privileges  of  intimate  association  with  Grant  and  his 
staff  ?  Is  it  likely  that  Grant  would  preserve  that  letter 
for  the  information  of  future  generations?  Is  it  prob 
able  that  Rawlins  made  a  copy  of  that  which  he  must 
have  been  an  hour  in  writing,  beginning  at  I  A.M.?  Is 
it  possible  that  he  would  permit  any  one  else  to  copy  it  ? 

Let  us  finish  this  topic  here  and  now.  Whatever 
may  have  been  Rawlins's  anxiety  as  to  Grant's  alleged 
weakness  in  the  West,  he  seems  to  have  recovered  in 
great  measure  before  the  march  to  the  James.  Porter 
frankly  refers  in  his  Memoirs  to  the  fact  that  the  Gen- 

306 


OBSTACLES  AND  DELAYS 

eral  would  take  a  modest  glass  with  the  rest.  It  is  ref 
utation  of  the  theory  that  Grant  could  drink  nothing 
without  showing  ill  effects,  though  it  is  certain  that  a 
little  would  affect  him  more  than  it  did  many  another. 

A  comical  incident  grew  out  of  this  soldier  custom 
prevalent  in  all  armies  since  the  crusades,  and  tabooed 
by  only  an  occasional  ascetic  in  the  days  of  which  we 
write.  Generals  there  were,  like  Wilson  and  Upton — 
splendid  soldiers,  too,  and  manful  men — who  would  not 
touch  liquor  themselves  or  tolerate  it  about  them.  But 
at  nine  out  of  ten  headquarters — corps,  division,  brigade 
or  regimental — no  such  abstinence  prevailed,  and  there 
came  a  time  when  even  the  chief  quartermaster  of  the 
armies  of  the  United  States  found  his  supply  running 
short.  It  happened  to  be  one  of  the  times  in  which 
Stanton  had  his  wary  eye  on  Grant's  headquarters, 
firmly  convinced  that  officers  there  were  wiring  con 
fidential  information  to  influence  the  gold  market  and 
were  speculating  on  the  strength  of  it.  By  his  order 
all  telegraphic  despatches  were  rigidly  scrutinized;  and 
if  any  could  be  found  which  in  the  faintest  degree  de 
parted  from  the  strictly  official  and  essential,  they  were 
to  be  at  once  brought  to  him.  One  day,  in  the  long  and 
dreary  winter  that  followed  the  unsuccessful  assaults 
about  Petersburg,  a  despatch  from  an  officer  of  Grant's 
staff  to  an  old  chum  and  comrade  in  Oregon  days,  then 
stationed  in  New  York,  was  laid  before  Mr.  Stanton, 
and  the  Secretary  read,  became  suddenly  charged  with 
electric  impulse,  and,  barely  able  to  control  himself, 
sent  for  an  officer  who  intimately  knew  both  the  cor 
respondents  and  who  had  scouted  the  idea  of  any  covert 
or  underhand  measures  on  part  of  either.  "  Look  at 
this,  sir !  "  demanded  Stanton.  "  Look  at  this !  Here 
is  proof  conclusive  of  what  I  tell  you — a  damnable 
cipher  code  that  no  one  here  has  ever  seen  before.  Now, 
what  have  you  to  say  ?  What  can  that  be  but  a  means  of 
conveying  forbidden  information?" 

307 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

The  officer  took  it  and  read ;  then  he,  too,  nearly  ex 
ploded,  but  not  with  wrath.  "If  your  cipher  sharps 
had  ever  served  in  Oregon,  Mr.  Secretary,  this  would 
be  no  puzzle  at  all.  It  is  nothing  but  a  message  in 
Chinook,  which  interpreted  reads,  *  Send  me  another 
keg  of  that  same  whiskey.' " 

However,  there  was  much  less  drinking  at  the 
various  headquarters  than  the  few  chroniclers  would 
give  one  to  understand,  and  these  few,  it  might  be 
hazarded,  have  referred  to  the  matter,  not  so  much  to 
call  attention  to  others'  indulgence  as  to  their  own 
abstinence.  It  is  noted  in  telling  how  General  this  or 
Senator  that  asked  for  a  drink  of  brandy  or  whiskey 
on  reaching  "  my  headquarters  "  that  the  narrator  takes 
occasion  to  say,  "  While  I  never  used  it  myself,"  the 
visitor's  needs  were  presently  supplied. 

There  was  of  necessity  very  much  of  "  entertaining  " 
at  Grant's  headquarters  from  the  day  they  were  estab 
lished  at  City  Point.  All  manner  of  men,  from  the 
President  down,  came  thither  from  time  to  time — Presi 
dent,  peace  commissioners,  politicians,  relatives  of  ill  or 
wounded  soldiers,  generals  and  their  staff  officers  from 
other  commands,  and  the  incessant  aides-de-camp  of  the 
Armies  of  the  Potomac  and  the  James.  In  very  many 
cases  the  visitors  were  guests  of  the  lieutenant-general 
himself,  but  many,  as  a  rule,  were  invited  to  the  staff 
table  and  very  probably,  after  a  hard  ride  in  stormy 
weather,  to  a  "  nip  "  at  the  tent  of  some  one  of  the 
military  household.  It  once  or  twice  happened  during 
the  protracted  stay  of  Mrs.  Grant  and  little  Jesse  that 
the  General  received  the  reports  of  night-riding  staff 
officers  at  the  camp  fire,  and  adjourned  with  them  to  the 
tent  of  Colonel  Dent  or  Colonel  Ingalls,  Colonel  Parker 
or  some  other  staff  officer  who  happened  still  to  be  up, 
and  when  the  chilled  and  wearied  visitor  had  been  re 
freshed  by  a  stiff  drink,  he  could  then  be  interrogated 
until  Grant  had  extracted  all  information  possible.  This 

308 


OBSTACLES  AND  DELAYS 

probably  was  the  foundation  for  the  venomous  story  of 
his  "  surreptitiously  obtaining  whiskey  "  in  spite  of  the 
efforts  of  Rawlins. 

The  General  had  moved  his  family  East.  The  elder 
children  had  been  placed  at  school  (Fred,  the  first  born, 
with  the  honors  and  a  scar  or  two  of  Vicksburg,  pre 
paring  for  West  Point),  but  Mrs.  Grant  came  to  join 
her  husband  about  as  soon  as  his  cabin  was  ready  for  her 
reception,  and  here,  to  his  obvious  comfort,  spent  many 
weeks.  Her  brother,  Colonel  Fred  Dent,  was  now  the 
only  family  appointee  on  the  staff — certain  earlier  selec 
tions,  made  in  deference  to  her  wishes,  having  proved 
unsuitable.  Colonel  Dent  was  an  amusing  talker,  and 
although  of  no  particular  military  strength  to  the  staff, 
was  popular  among  his  brother  officers  as  the  source 
of  most  of  the  merriment  about  headquarters. 

Among  the  visitors,  too,  was  Jesse  Root,  the  father, 
who  came  and  spent  some  little  time.  As  was  to  be  ex 
pected  in  the  man,  he  had  his  eyes  about  him,  and  the 
business  instinct  of  the  past  was  still  dominant.  Many 
a  rebuff  had  come  to  Jesse  in  the  course  of  the  three 
years  in  which  the  star  of  the  son  had  been  at  last  in 
the  ascendant.  Filial  though  he  was,  the  General  had 
to  set  firm  foot  upon  every  scheme  to  profit  through  the 
methods  or  needs  of  Uncle  Sam,  and  many  a  scheme 
had  Jesse.  "  Business  "  was  born  in  him ;  the  lack  of  it 
in  the  son  had  made  him  the  butt  of  paternal  sarcasm 
and  public  slights.  Father  and  father-in-law  both  had 
said  many  a  cutting  thing  of  the  sad- faced,  stoop- 
shouldered  son  in  those  dismal  years  immediately  fol 
lowing  his  retirement  from  the  army,  but  never  a  sign 
of  resentment  or  symptom  of  retaliation  came  from 
Grant.  There  was  humorous  twinkle  in  his  eyes  the 
day  that  Jesse  broached  his  proposition  as  to  gathering 
in  the  hides  of  the  many  beef  cattle  butchered  for  the 
use  of  the  great  force  in  front  of  Petersburg.  The  in 
stincts  of  the  tanner  made  Jesse  quite  importunate,  but 

309 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

the  soldier  son  had  to  deny  the  thrifty  father.  Yet 
what  a  chance  to  ship  whole  cargoes  of  hides  to  the 
nearest  market — hides  which  had  cost  the  shipper  noth 
ing!  The  time  had  been  in  the  not  very  distant  past 
when,  at  the  beck  of  the  younger  brothers,  the  broken 
captain  was  not  only  a  party  to  transactions  in  hides, 
but  conspicuous  in  the  meanest  and  hardest  part  of  the 
job— the  personal  handling  and  hauling  from  seller  to 
cellar. 

It  was  during  this  winter,  too,  that  Grant  was  com 
pleting  the  purchase  of  the  lands  about  the  scene  of 
his  courtship  and  marriage.  His  pay  as  lieutenant- 
general,  owing  to  the  price  of  gold  (which  had  risen  to 
290)  amounted  in  actual  value  to  less  than  five  thousand 
a  year,  and  at  war-time  prices  the  purchasing  power 
was  pitiably  small.  Nevertheless,  the  moment  the  debts 
were  paid,  his  first  thought  seems  to  have  been  to  buy 
the  old  home  for  Julia  Dent  and  the  children.  Every 
penny  borrowed  about  Galena  had  been  scrupulously 
paid  before  the  war  was  a  year  old.  Every  little  bill 
contracted  along  that  dreary  roadside  between  White 
Haven  and  the  heart  of  St.  Louis  had  been  wiped  off 
the  slate.  Some  of  the  shop-keepers  (there  were  still 
a  few  as  late  as  the  exposition  of  1903)  had  lived  to 
tell  how  Grant  came  back  to  them  in  '61  and  '62,  to 
say  he  still  owed  them  such  and  such  a  sum,  and  to 
settle  on  the  spot.  They  did  not  have  to  name  the 
amount  due.  In  every  instance  he  knew  it  and  re 
minded  them. 

It  was  during  this  winter  of  '64  and  '65,  too,  that 
public-spirited  citizens  of  Philadelphia  clubbed  together 
against  that  projected  return  to  St.  Louis  at  the  close 
of  the  war,  and  presented  Grant  with  a  fine  house  and 
lot  in  their  midst.  That  set  others  to  moving  in  like 
manner.  He  had  suffered  much  in  spirit  over  the  on 
slaughts  in  the  papers — the  "  Grant  the  Butcher  "  edi 
torials  which  followed  the  battling  in  the  Wilderness 

310 


OBSTACLES  AND  DELAYS 

and  Cold  Harbor,  the  latter  the  one  assault  which  he 
owned  was  an  error  and  ever  regretted.  He  had  borne 
in  patient  silence  the  innumerable  slings  that  were  dealt 
him  during  the  presidential  campaign  of  the  fall  of  '64, 
resulting  in  the  final  defeat  of  McClellan — the  logical 
candidate  of  the  "  War  is  a  Failure  "  party — and  in  the 
triumphant  return  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  There  was 
even  a  symptom  of  grim  satisfaction  in  Grant's  receipt 
that  winter  of  the  superb  sword  which  had  been  put 
up  to  popular  vote  at  the  mammoth  fair  of  the  Sanitary 
Commission  in  the  city  of  New  York.  For  long  days,  as 
the  "  most  popular  general "  McClellan  had  led  in  the 
voting,  and  his  name  stood  at  the  head  of  the  list  of 
all  the  candidates  until  toward  the  close,  when  better 
counsels  and  possibly  the  reserve  forces  and  funds  of 
the  LTnion  League  prevailed,  and  Grant  won  by  a  big 
plurality. 

All  the  same  that  winter  of  '64  and  '65  was  a  trying 
one  to  Grant  and  all  about  him,  even  though  Sherman 
had  marched  almost  unopposed  through  the  void  and 
hollow  spaces  of  a  depleted  South,  and  was  striding 
northward  through  the  Carolinas — though  Thomas, 
firm,  tenacious  and  absolutely  sure  in  his  judgment,  had 
dealt  the  most  telling  blow  of  the  war,  and  was  threaten 
ing  the  approaches  to  Virginia  from  the  west — though 
Sheridan,  with  his  now  well-handled  cavalry,  had 
thrashed  Early  out  of  the  Shenandoah,  and  was  pre 
paring  to  swoop  down  upon  Richmond  from  the  north 
west — though  Wilson,  with  the  strongest  corps  of  horse 
men  ever  assembled  within  our  borders,  was  launching 
out  upon  the  final  blow  at  the  central  South,  which  was 
to  leave  nothing  uncaptured  from  Eastport,  in  northern 
Mississippi,  to  Irwinsville,  in  southern  Georgia.  About 
Petersburg  and  Richmond,  however,  every  blow  had 
been  skilfully  parried  and  fiercely  countered  by  Lee. 
The  mine  had  been  a  miserable  fiasco,  the  attempts  on 
the  Weldon  railway  emphatic  failures,  the  wintry 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

months  in  hut  and  trench  had  "  softened  "  the  Armies 
of  the  Potomac  and  the  James,  and  still  Grant  sat  there 
grim  and  determined,  confident  with  the  coming  of 
spring  and  Sheridan  he  could  turn  the  final  trick,  reach 
round  the  southern  flank  of  Lee,  compel  him  to  let  go 
his  hold  on  those  deadly  parapets  of  Petersburg,  then 
fall  upon  him  in  the  open  and,  weakened  by  that  time 
as  his  army  must  be,  who  could  doubt  the  result  ?  And 
yet  how  superbly  those  starving,  tattered,  jaded  fellows 
fought  to  the  very  last!  Superb  as  they  had  been  at 
Malvern,  at  Antietam,  at  Gettysburg,  in  the  Wilderness, 
never  were  they  grander  in  their  heroism  than  in  those 
last  stands  at  Sailors'  Creek  and  Farmville,  as  they 
rallied  with  deathless  valor  and  devotion  about  the  battle 
flag  of  their  beloved  and  chivalric  Lee. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 
THE  LAST  CAMPAIGN 

MOST  loyally  and  faithfully  had  General  Meade 
sought  to  carry  out  every  wish  or  command  sent  him  by 
Grant.  It  had  been  the  latter's  method  merely  to  in 
dicate  the  movement  required  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac,  leaving  to  Meade  the  details.  They  were  men 
utterly  unlike  in  mode  or  manner,  yet  imbued  with 
hearty  respect,  one  for  the  other.  Meade,  who  was  the 
soul  of  courtesy  and  consideration  when  unruffled,  be 
came  unbearable  when  aroused — stormed  at  every  one 
about  him,  even  at  generals  of  rank  and  distinction,  who, 
as  a  rule,  could  only  submit  in  silence  as  became  officers 
bred  to  the  purple  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  When, 
as  happened  just  once,  the  object  of  his  temporary 
wrath  was  born  of  Irish  stock  and  bred  in  the  Army 
of  the  West,  the  instant  result  was  a  verbal  battle  the 
like  of  which  was  never  fought  in  the  East.  Meade,  it 
was  said,  could  lose  his  temper  twenty  times  a  day,  yet 
never  lose  a  friend.  Grant's  temper  was  lost  but  twice 
during  the  entire  war,  yet  his  enemies  seemed  to  multi 
ply.  Meade  was  irritable  as  Grant  was  serene,  and  as 
methodical  as  Grant  was  careless.  Moreover,  they  dif 
fered  widely  in  their  ways.  Meade  was  of  the  Engineer 
school,  never  until  the  war  having  set  squadron  in  the 
field.  Grant  had  learned  the  game  from  the  fighting 
end  at  the  start.  Meade  had  the  Engineer  eye  for  a 
strong  position,  and  was  imbued  with  the  defensive 
method  of  holding  it.  "  What  shall  I  do  if  the  enemy 
pushes  me  here  ?  "  said  he  to  Grant,  pointing  to  a  place 
on  the  map  where  his  line  seemed  weak  and  where  sup 
ports  might  not  readily  reach  him.  "  Push  him  there," 
said  Grant,  pointing  to  a  spot  a  mile  away.  Meade  had 
thought  only  of  the  stop;  Grant  thought  instantly  of  the 

313 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

"  counter."  Meade,  most  loyal  and  subordinate  him 
self,  looked  for  loyalty  and  subordination  as  instant  and 
as  complete  as  his  own.  Hancock  and  Sedgwick  were 
examples  of  the  admirable  as  subordinate  commanders. 
Warren,  with  all  his  dash  and  bravery  when  once  en 
gaged,  was  cursed  with  the  propensity  to  carp,  cavil 
and  criticise.  It  led  almost  to  his  relief  from  com 
mand  before  ever  they  crossed  the  James.  It  was  the 
underlying  cause  of  his  dramatic  and  most  undeserved 
undoing  at  the  very  climax  of  the  last  campaign. 

But  Sedgwick  and  Hancock  both  were  lost  to  Meade 
as  the  spring  of  '65  came  on.  Sedgwick  had  been  shot 
dead  that  fateful  day  in  front  of  Spottsylvania.  Han 
cock,  disabled  by  wounds,  had  availed  himself  of  leave 
of  absence  and  had  been  set  to  organizing  a  new  com 
mand.  Wright,  a  fighting  Engineer,  had  succeeded  be 
loved  "  Uncle  John  "  in  command  of  the  Sixth  Corps. 
Humphreys,  another  fighting  Engineer,  with  a  record 
behind  him,  had  succeeded  to  the  command  of  the 
Second,  while  Burnside's  old  men  were  now  led  by  that 
thorough  soldier,  another  Engineer,  John  G.  Parke,  and 
what  was  left  of  the  Army  of  the  James  by  E.  O.  C. 
Ord. 

The  first  expedition  to  Fort  Fisher,  conducted  by 
Benjamin  F.  Butler,  had  failed  in  the  moment  when 
success  seemed  certain ;  and  as  the  same  troops,  with 
a  different  leader,  triumphed  readily  where  Butler  had 
failed,  he,  too,  lost  his  command,  and  joined  the  array 
of  Grant  haters,  of  whom  there  were  now  so  many. 
It  had  been  Grant's  lot  to  have  to  displace  a  dozen  gen 
erals  in  the  effort  to.  find  competent  and  efficient  com 
manders,  and  every  time  such  general  left  the  field  he 
and  his  friends  flooded  the  press  with  sensational  clamor 
at  the  expense  of  Grant,  who  heard  it  all,  of  course,  and, 
true  to  his  stoical  custom,  sat  in  silence,  smoked  and 
said  nothing.  McClernand,  Rosecrans,  C.  S.  Hamilton, 
Gordon  Granger,  Sigel,  "  Baldy  "  Smith  and  Benjamin 


THE  LAST  CAMPAIGN 

F.  Butler — even  loyal,  but  hopelessly  slow,  "  Old  Burn  " 
and  certain  others,  all  owed  their  relief  from  duty, 
primarily,  of  course,  to  faults  of  their  own,  but  directly 
to  the  order  or  request  of  Grant.  Just  in  the  nick  of 
time  he  was  saved  from  supplanting  Thomas  on  the  eve 
of  splendid  victory.  It  is  sadly  to  be  regretted  that  he 
himself  could  not  have  been  at  the  far  front  that  April 
Fools'  Day  at  Five  Forks,  when  Sheridan's  brilliant 
tactical  fight  and  spectacular  overthrow  of  Pickett's 
famed  division  (what  was  left  of  it)  was  marred  by 
the  sacrifice  of  that  brave  and  brainy  leader  Gouverneur 
Warren — the  man  whom  Grant  himself  at  one  time 
would  have  placed  in  command  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac  had  anything  happened  to  Meade. 

But  Sheridan  was  the  man  of  the  hour  and  deserv 
edly  so.  He  had  rejoined  in  the  full  flush  of  his 
triumphs  in  the  Shenandoah  and  up  the  James.  He 
had  brought  back  his  seasoned  cavalry  almost  in  the 
pink  of  condition — fit,  so  far  as  the  men  were  concerned, 
for  anything.  He  had  launched  out  around  Lee's 
southern  wing,  reaching  for  the  Southside  Railway  and 
the  rear  of  that  impregnable  line.  He  and  his  grim 
superior  had  fully  decided  that  the  time  had  now 
come  to  "  end  it  all  right  here."  The  South,  as  Butler 
wrote,  had  "  robbed  the  cradle  and  the  grave  "  to  put 
their  last  reserves  into  the  fighting  lines,  for  gray-haired 
men  and  laughing  boys  were  shouldering  the  worn 
Enfields  in  the  battered  ranks.  If  Sheridan  could  reach 
the  roads  to  the  west  of  Petersburg,  there  could  be  no 
help  for  it,  Lee  must  let  go.  Then  what  could  be  hoped 
for  Richmond? 

Yet,  even  at  the  last,  it  seems  as  though  the  gods 
had  planned  to  balk  the  march  of  the  Union.  The  rains 
fell  in  torrents  and  flooded  the  flat  country  to  the  south 
and  west.  The  troopers  had  ridden  away,  defiant  of 
wind  or  weather,  had  rounded  the  far  flank  and  stirred 
up  a  hornets'  nest  of  Southern  Horse,  fighting  like  fiends 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

about  Dinwiddie.  The  infantry  and  the  gunners  of  the 
army  had  been  summoned  from  their  snug  winter 
quarters,  and  now,  soaked  with  rain  and  soft  with 
their  long  hibernation,  sulked  along  the  dripping  wood 
paths,  even  their  generals  moody,  silent  and  depressed. 
Wright  and  the  Sixth  Corps,  Sheridan's  sturdy  backers 
in  the  Shenandoah,  were  too  far  back  now.  It  was 
Warren,  with  the  Fifth,  who  marched  nearest.  They 
had  all  bivouacked  for  the  night,  seeking  such  shelter 
as  ponchos  and  scant  canvas  could  afford,  and  were 
huddled  about  the  camp  fires,  dull  and  dispirited.  Even 
Meade  seemed  ready  to  quit  and  put  back  to  the  winter 
lines ;  even  Rawlins  urged  it,  and  the  loyal  little  gather 
ing  at  Grant's  headquarters,  by  this  time  moved  far  out 
to  Dabney's  saw  mills  southwest  of  town,  seemed  to 
take  the  cue  from  him.  It  was  Sheridan  who  saved 
the  scene,  Sheridan  who  came  splashing  in  from  the 
far  front,  chock-full  of  vim,  confidence  and  energy,  ab 
solutely  sure  that  with  infantry  to  back  him  he  could 
send  Fitz  Lee  and  Pickett  whirling  away  northward, 
and  then  envelop  the  lines  of  Petersburg.  It  was 
Warren  who  was  told  off  to  his  aid,  Warren  of  whom 
the  word  had  been  passed — "  He  may  fail  you.  If  he 
does,  relieve  him/'  for  Grant,  with  all  his  appreciation 
of  Warren's  fighting  spirit,  "  when  once  engaged,"  had 
more  than  once  found  serious  fault  with  his  sluggish 
methods  when  instant  action  was  needed. 

And  it  all  fell  out  as  might  have  been  foreseen. 
Warren,  ordered  to  march  at  night,  did  not  get  fairly 
away  until  morning.  Gravelly  Run  had  risen  again  and 
could  not  be  forded.  All  day  long  Sheridan  fumed  at 
Dinwiddie,  waiting  for  Warren,  and  finally  pushed 
ahead  without  him,  and  when  at  last  he  had  marshalled 
his  cavalry  in  front  of  the  works  at  Five  Forks,  and 
needed  only  the  infantry  of  the  Fifth  Corps  to  make 
the  enveloping  attack  of  the  eastward  flank,  it  seemed 
as  though  Warren  could  never  be  roused  to  the  im- 

316 


THE  LAST  CAMPAIGN 

portance  of  the  occasion.  The  sun  was  fast  setting, 
Warren's  men  were  still  marching  up  from  the  rear, 
and  while  Sheridan  was  striding  about  fretting,  fuming, 
swearing  with  wrath  and  impatience,  Warren  sat  su 
pinely  by,  apparently  indifferent  and,  as  it  seemed  to 
Sheridan,  impassive,  sluggish,  even  sullen.  At  last, 
and  only  just  in  time,  the  rearmost  regiments  reached 
their  position ;  at  last  the  word  was  given  to  go  in,  and 
with  a  wild  clamor  of  bugles  and  cheers  the  cavalry  of 
Merritt,  Custer  and  "  Tommy  "  Devin  were  flung  in  the 
teeth  of  the  enemy.  Ayres's  fine  division  of  Warren's 
Corps  was  checked  at  the  eastward  angle  of  the  works, 
and  Sheridan  felt  himself  compelled  to  rush  in  and 
personally  take  a  hand.  With  his  battle  flag  clinched 
in  his  gauntleted  fist,  spurring  straightway  among  the 
faltering  ranks,  he  darted  hither  and  yon,  in  and  about, 
cheering,  cursing,  driving,  until  the  very  force  of  his 
meteoric  example  seemed  to  carry  them  in  and  over  the 
sodden  parapets,  even  as  the  charging  cavalry  swept 
over  the  long  line  from  the  south.  Then  when  he 
wanted  Warren,  as  luck  would  have  it,  that  brilliant 
soldier  was  having  a  time  of  his  own  recalling  a  wander 
ing  division,  and  though  he  finally  swung  it  in  and  led 
it  in  magnificent  wheel  enveloping  Pickett's  staggering 
line,  and  with  it  charged  home  upon  their  rear,  he  had 
not  happened  to  be  where  Sheridan's  aides  expected  to 
find  him.  He  was  personally  conducting  a  splendid 
fight  in  his  own  daring  and  decisive  way;  but  through 
the  thick  woods  no  sign  of  it  had  come  to  those  about 
the  commanding  general,  and  the  ill-considered  order 
was  issued  in  the  very  moment  of  triumph — the  order 
that  sent  Warren  to  the  rear  a  heartbroken  man. 

Sore  in  spirit  over  the  loss  of  their  admired  leader 
and  the  death  of  gallant  Fred  Winthrop,  shot  down  at 
the  head  of  his  brigade,  the  Fifth  Corps  spent  that 
April  night  in  sleep  and  silence,  while  the  troopers  of 
the  cavalry  were  exulting  in  their  great  victory.  Now, 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

assuredly,  the  Army  of  Lee  would  have  to  abandon  the 
impregnable  works;  the  Southside  Railway  was  within 
Sheridan's  grasp.  But,  farther  to  the  west  the  Rich 
mond  &  Danville  line  was  still  open  to  the  enemy. 
Squeezed  out  of  Petersburg  and  southern  Virginia,  Lee 
might  swiftly  make  his  way  into  North  Carolina,  and 
there,  uniting  with  Johnston,  overwhelm  Sherman,  and 
then  turn  back  on  Grant.  But  the  plans  of  the  latter 
had  already  been  made  to  block  that  very  scheme.  Lee 
was  never  to  be  allowed  to  reach  Johnston  or  support 
of  any  kind.  Early  on  the  morning  of  the  2nd  Sheridan 
had  struck  out  and  reached  the  Appomattox,  west  of  the 
encircled  city.  Wright,  Humphreys,  Parke  and  Ord  had 
swept  over  the  outer  intrenchments  and  completed  the 
semicircle  about  the  doomed  city.  Vengefully  and  fiercely 
Lee  struck  at  his  assailants  but  could  not  shake  them 
off,  and  while  Grant  was  sending  encouraging  tidings 
to  President  Lincoln,  eagerly  awaiting  news  at  City 
Point,  Lee's  messenger  to  President  Davis,  coming  in 
the  midst  of  Sunday  morning  service,  bore  him  the  long- 
dreaded  tale  of  disaster.  For  the  last  time  the  fated 
chieftain  of  the  Confederacy  bowed  his  head  in  that 
sanctuary  and  passed  out  into  the  April  sunshine,  leav 
ing  a  stricken  congregation  to  hear  the  sorrowful  words 
of  their  loved  old  rector  that  there  would  be  no  further 
service  that  day.  They  could  only  hie  them  homeward 
and  face  the  catastrophe  Davis  and  his  associates  had 
brought  upon  a  brave  and  devoted  people. 

That  night  the  men  of  Lee  slipped  away  across  the 
Appomattox  and  struck  out  westward,  safe  for  the 
moment  from  attack.  That  night  the  officials  of  the 
Confederate  government  were  in  full  flight  for  the 
southwest,  leaving  Richmond  to  the  mercies  of  its  mob. 
Early  on  the  morning  of  the  3rd  the  men  of  Meade  had 
burst  into  the  outskirts  of  Petersburg,  Grant  riding  in 
their  midst,  while  farther  to  the  north  the  men  of  the 
old  Army  of  the  James  poured  into  the  smoking  streets 


THE  LAST  CAMPAIGN 

of  the  capital,  and  set  to  work  to  extinguish  the  flames. 
In  one  immense  herd,  at  the  southern  end  of  the  bridges 
at  Petersburg,  were  massed  the  men  of  Lee's  rear  guard, 
squeezing  across  as  fast  as  possible,  yet  presenting  a 
broad  target  for  the  guns  of  the  field  artillery,  such  as 
never  before  had  been  afforded,  and  Grant,  "  the 
Butcher,"  gazing  from  afar  on  the  helpless  throng,  their 
outward  battalions  still  bravely,  defiantly  facing  the 
swift  advance  of  the  blue  skirmishers,  stayed  the  order 
which  would  have  brought  the  batteries  lashing  from 
the  distant  rear,  to  deluge  with  shell  and  shrapnel  those 
thinned  and  devoted  brigades.  "  I  could  not  bear  to 
kill,"  he  said,  "  when  it  seemed  so  certain  that  in  a  day 
or  two  we  could  easily  capture." 

Then  came  the  chase;  Meade,  with  the  infantry 
following  close  at  the  heels ;  Sheridan,  with  the  cavalry, 
reaching  even  farther  out  to  the  left  front,  yet  at  every 
possible  opportunity  darting  in  and  dealing  savage  blows 
at  the  sore  and  bleeding  flank.  Gallantly,  stubbornly, 
in  spite  of  hunger,  desertion,  battle  losses,  lack  of  sleep 
and  rest,  those  heroic  fellows  in  ragged  gray  faced  and 
fought  to  the  very  last.  With  rations  in  abundance 
awaiting  them  at  Appomattox  station,  they  set  forth 
eagerly  on  the  dawn  of  the  ninth  day,  confident  that 
by  noon  they  would  be  feasting  and  resting  about  their 
ladened  trains,  and  lo !  the  onward  way  was  barred  by 
long  extended  lines  of  horsemen  in  faded  blue,  and 
when  the  bugles  sang  "  Forward,"  and  the  cheery  word 
was  passed,  "  It's  only  cavalry ;  nothing  else  could  yet 
have  got  here,"  and  sturdily  the  gray  ranks  swept  on 
ward  to  brush  aside  the  insolent,  challenging  troopers, 
then,  right  and  left,  the  nimble  riders  drew  aside,  and 
lo,  again  there  uprose  solid,  serried  ranks  of  sturdy  in 
fantry,  the  hard-marching  linesmen  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac,  and  at  last,  at  last,  after  four  long  years  of 
almost  incomparable  battling,  the  Army  of  Northern 
Virginia — the  "  finest  infantry  in  the  world,"  as  foreign 

319 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

commentators  would  have  it — the  flower  of  the  South 
ern  forces,  as  all  admit,  though  by  this  time  only  the 
ghost  of  its  once  magnificent  self — was  beaten  at  its  own 
brilliant  game  and  blocked  and  brought  to  bay. 

Another  beautiful  and  outwardly  peaceful  Sunday 
morning  was  this  on  which  the  white  flag  suddenly  shot 
up  above  the  halted  lines  of  Lee.  Forty-eight  hours 
earlier  Grant  had  sought  to  stop  further  bloodshed 
and  besought  Lee  to  surrender,  but  there  was  still  hope 
in  the  Southern  ranks  that  they  could  reach  the  Danville 
railway  and  leave  even  Sheridan  behind.  That  hope 
now  was  dead.  Not  only  Sheridan  but  Ord  was  here  in 
sufficient  force  to  bar,  while  Meade's  divisions  were 
hammering  at  the  rear  and  closing  in  on  the  southward 
flank.  Moreover,  nothing  but  parched  corn  had  they 
now  left  to  eat,  and  little  enough  of  that.  The  remnant 
of  the  once  proud  and  indomitable  army  had  been  worn 
down  by  battle,  by  suffering  and  starvation  until  barely 
the  shadow  was  left.  Everything  was  gone  but  honor. 
And  so,  toward  noon  that  day  they  came  again  together, 
those  two  leaders  of  men  whom  we  last  saw  meet  at  the 
wagon  train  on  the  eastern  shore  of  Lake  Chalco — Lee 
now,  in  spite  of  his  army's  straits,  clad  in  immaculate 
uniform,  brand  new  and  brilliant  to  the  last  detail,  with 
his  costly  sword  gleaming  at  his  side,  erect,  dignified, 
as  he  stood  awaiting  the  coming  of  his  conqueror  at  the 
little  homestead  of  the  Virginia  McLeans.  One  staff 
officer  only  stood  in  attendance,  the  spectacled  Colonel 
Marshall ;  and  presently  "  up  from  the  South,"  riding 
hard  after  riding  long,  and  risen  from  a  night  of  sick 
headache  that  left  him  pale  and  haggard,  stoop-shoul 
dered  by  habit,  shabby  in  raiment  by  force  of  circum 
stances,  and  looking  as  little  like  a  victorious  general  as 
Lee  looked  like  the  beaten  man,  came  Grant,  the 
conqueror. 

Dressed  like  a  private  soldier,  in  loose  blue  sack,  with 
baggy  trousers  and  bespattered  boots,  his  hair  and  beard 

320 


From  an  old  photograph  in  the  collection  of  F.  H    Meserve 

THE  MCLEAN  HOMESTEAD,  APPOMATTOX 


THE  LAST  CAMPAIGN 

unkempt,  his  hand  ungloved,  the  general-in-chief  of  the 
armies  of  the  United  States  swung  out  of  saddle,  climbed 
the  wooden  steps,  entered  the  little  parlor,  and  there 
the  renowned  leaders  clasped  hands  a  moment,  called 
each  other  formally  by  title  and  by  name,  and  with 
Rawlins  and  presently  Porter,  Babcock  and  Parker,  of 
the  staff,  joined  later  by  Dent  and  Badeau,  and  later 
still  by  Generals  Ord,  Sheridan  and  others,  within,  while 
swarms  of  officers  of  all  ranks  gathered  on  the  lawn 
without,  the  two  great  commanders  began  their  memor 
able  conference.  Grant  was  for  indulging  in  reminis 
cence  of  the  Mexican  war,  surprised  to  find  that  Lee 
could  well  recall  him,  and  twice  had  Lee  to  bring  him 
back  to  the  more  important  business  in  hand — the  terms 
of  that  historic  surrender. 

Then  at  the  beck  of  the  shabbiest  looking,  yet  the 
greatest,  soldier  of  the  gathering,  Colonel  Parker  swung 
a  small  table  into  the  centre  of  the  room,  laid  his  writing 
pad  upon  it,  and  Grant  swiftly  penned  the  simple  terms 
familiar  to  almost  every  school  boy  in  the  land,  provid 
ing  for  the  immediate  disarming  and  disbandment  of 
the  Southern  force — officers  and  men  to  pledge  them 
selves  not  again  to  take  arms  unless  properly  exchanged, 
officers  and  men  to  take  home  with  them  such  horses 
as  they  had,  officers  (a  glance  at  the  shining  sword  of 
Lee  suggested  this)  to  retain  their  prized  side  arms — 
the  necessary  rolls  to  be  made  out  at  once.  Lee's  fine, 
grave  features  softened  a  little  as  he  read — so  gentle,  so 
magnanimous  were  the  terms.  "  My  men  are  nearly 
starving,"  he  began,  when  Grant  stopped  him  with 
prompt  question  as  to  the  number  in  need,  and  the  in 
stant  order  for  a  full  supply  of  rations. 

And  then  they  parted,  Lee  passing  down  the  steps 
and  out  at  the  open  gate  to  where  gray  "  Traveler  " 
stood  awaiting  him,  every  Union  soldier  facing  his  late 
antagonist  at  the  salute,  and  then,  when  he  had  ridden 
beyond  earshot,  the  jubilee  began — Custer,  seizing  the 
21  321 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

table  on  which  the  chiefs  had  signed  and  bearing  it 
forth  on  his  curly  head ;  bearded  elders,  with  glistening 
eyes,  battering  each  other's  backs;  slender  young  staff 
aides  flying  into  wild  gymnastics  about  the  lawn,  others 
spurring  off  to  bear  the  wondrous  tidings,  and  start  the 
guns  to  thundering  their  rejoicing — a  symptom  stopped 
on  the  instant  by  Grant's  quick  order.  There  should  be 
no  "  crowing  "  in  his  command  over  a  foeman  so  daunt 
less,  so  daring,  and  even,  after  all  was  said,  so  dear; 
for  were  they  not  brothers?  He  checked  the  shouts 
with  which  the  men  would  now  have  eagerly  greeted 
him,  as  presently  he  rode  back  to  wire  the  news  to 
Washington.  Never  had  there  been  a  war  of  more 
deadly,  desperate  fighting ;  never  had  there  been  a  four 
years'  grapple  to  compare  in  valor  and  determination 
with  that  fought  out  on  the  sacred  soil  of  Virginia; 
never  in  all  the  history  of  war  was  conqueror  so 
unconscious.  Once  again,  on  the  morrow,  he  stopped 
to  chat  for  half  an  hour  on  his  homeward  way  with  the 
gray-haired  idol  of  the  South,  his  conquered  foe,  and 
then  set  forth  to  Washington  to  provide  for  the  speedy 
muster  out  of  the  vast  army  of  volunteers,  and  to  lay 
before  the  President  and  Secretary  of  War  the  story 
of  his  soldier  stewardship — the  most  acclaimed  and  ap 
plauded  man  of  all  the  nation,  the  soldier  who,  having 
endured  to  the  end,  at  last  had  worn  out  the  sword  of 
Lee. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 
PEACE  AND  PERPLEXITIES 

GRANT'S  own  Memoirs  close  with  Appomattox. 
Over  the  troublous  days  of  reconstruction,  of  presiden 
tial  impeachment,  of  political  intrigue,  of  his  own 
administrations,  of  all,  in  fact,  that  followed  the  great 
surrender,  he  draws  the  veil  of  silence.  The  last  year 
of  the  war  had  been  a  severe  strain  upon  the  patience 
and  patriotism  of  the  North.  It  had  been  quite  as  severe 
a  strain  upon  the  general-in-chief.  Just  as  the  cynics 
of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  had  prophesied — the  man 
who  had  whipped  every  adversary  in  the  West  had 
for  the  time  been  stopped  by  that  great,  gray  captain, 
who,  in  succession,  had  defeated  every  chieftain,  no 
matter  with  what  preponderance  in  arms  and  men,  the 
North  had  sent  against  him.  From  the  Rapidan  to  the 
James  Grant  had  slowly  forced  or  flanked  the  army  of 
Lee.  From  early  May  to  July — "  fighting  it  out  on 
this  line  if  it  took  all  summer  " — and  full  half  his  men — 
the  inflexible  Westerner  had  pressed  at  every  point  the 
flexible  Virginian,  and  still,  as  autumn  wore  on,  that 
skilled  fencer  stood  dauntlessly  on  guard  between  him 
and  the  gates  of  the  Southern  capital.  Even  the  stout 
and  steadfast  heart  of  Grant  seemed  for  a  time  almost 
to  fail  him.  Back  at  Washington  the  President  and 
the  War  Secretary  were  silently  filling  his  every  requi 
sition  for  means  and  men,  but  behind  the  President  and 
his  despotic  minister  the  murmurings  of  the  people  and 
the  menace  of  the  press  had  begun  to  wear  upon  the 
iron  nerve  of  the  soldier  in  chief  command. 

It  was  characteristic  of  him  that  as  soon  as  safety 
would  permit,  he  should  send  for  Mrs.  Grant  and  some 
at  least  of  the  children,  and  it  is  remembered  that  dur- 

323 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

ing  the  autumn,  when  he  was  sought  by  a  staff  officer, 
the  commander  of  the  myriad  forces  of  the  Union  was 
found  rolling  upon  the  floor  of  the  little  cabin  in  mirth 
ful  grapple  with  Jesse,  the  younger,  and  that  on  another 
occasion  when  "  Cincinnati,"  caparisoned  for  ceremony, 
was  becoming  impatient  in  front  of  the  General's  field 
residence,  the  General  himself  was  found  at  the  back 
of  it,  himself  bestridden  by  his  lusty  little  son  and  heir, 
playing  horse  for  that  youngster's  benefit.  It  is  remem 
bered  by  those  who  surrounded  them  that  during  the 
days  of  Mrs.  Grant's  sojourn  at  City  Point  the  General 
spent  long  hours  at  her  side.  To  his  staff  he  would  not 
talk  of  his  troubles.  If  any  one  knew  them  it  was  his 
wife. 

The  long  strain  in  a  measure  accounts  for  his  im 
patience  with  Thomas,  whose  perfectly  justifiable  delay 
in  attacking  Hood  at  Nashville  seemed  inexplicable  at 
City  Point.  The  insistence  of  the  press  that  Grant  was 
"  losing  ground  "  in  the  eyes  of  the  administration  and 
the  hearts  of  the  people  during  that  long  "  hold  up  "  in 
front  of  Petersburg  was  another  thing  that  told  upon 
him.  He  had  been  North  on  a  visit  and  found  every 
where  a  sense  of  nervousness  and  apprehension  over 
Sherman's  dive  into  the  bowels  of  the  Confederacy.  He 
believed,  and  by  this  time  Sherman  knew,  the  Con 
federacy  was  but  an  empty  shell,  with  every  available 
man  on  the  surface  and  no  one  left  at  the  core.  He 
regarded  Sherman  as  the  most  brilliant  and  gifted 
soldier  of  his  day,  and  so  proclaimed  him  whithersoever 
he  went,  saying  much  on  that  score  at  least  and  doing 
everything  to  restore  confidence,  all  to  the  end  that  when 
Sherman  wired  from  Savannah  his  Christmas  present 
to  the  nation,  it  looked  for  a  time  as  though  popular 
acclaim  and  presidential  perplexities  might  result  in 
Sherman's  being  ordered  to  supplant  his  great  superior. 
The  move  was  actually  in  contemplation  at  Washington, 
and  even  that  could  not  daunt  the  deathless  friendship 

324 


PEACE  AND  PERPLEXITIES 

between  the  two — even  such  temptation  could  not  sap 
the  loyalty  of  such  a  man  as  Sherman  or  stagger  the 
faith  of  such  a  man  as  Grant.  Just  as  in  1861,  and  on 
to  Shiloh,  the  latter  held  that  "  Charley "  Smith  was 
best  fitted  to  command,  and  he,  Grant,  to  serve,  so  now 
in  '64  and  '65,  in  spite  of  all  that  had  occurred,  or  pos 
sibly  because  of  it,  there  were  days  in  which  he  more 
than  half  believed  that  Sherman  might  have  succeeded 
where  he  had  failed.  Sherman  was  magnetic,  meteoric, 
aggressive,  brilliant,  a  chieftain  who  aroused  the  en 
thusiasm  of  his  officers  and  men.  Grant  was  silent, 
simple,  even  stolid — arousing  no  enthusiasm  whatsoever. 
About  the  best  or  most  the  men  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac  ever  said  of  him  was  that  "  the  old  man  never 
quit  when  once  he  took  hold,"  or  else  that  widely  quoted 
tribute  in  the  vernacular  of  the  Western  rank  and  file, 
"  Ulysses  doesn't  scare  worth  a  damn." 

But  Ulysses  would  have  been  less  than  human  had 
he  enjoyed  defeat,  and  Grant  liked  to  win,  whether  in 
battle,  cards  or  horse  race ;  and  here,  as  the  last  year  of 
the  war  opened,  he  found  himself  in  danger  of  losing 
to  a  subordinate  the  laurels  of  a  conqueror — the  stars 
of  the  chief  command.  To  ninety-nine  men  out  of  a 
hundred  the  prospect  would  have  been  a  bitter  blow  and 
to  nearly  that  number  the  test  would  have  been  too 
much  for  friendship.  George  H.  Thomas,  as  we  have 
seen,  was  so  great,  so  magnanimous,  that  when  threat 
ened  with  removal  from  command  and  orders  to  serve 
under  one  of  his  own  subordinates,  he  could  announce 
his  instant  readiness  to  accept  the  decision  "  without  a 
murmur."  And  now  in  his  turn  Grant,  supreme  in 
command,  was  put  to  a  like  test,  and  met  it  instantly, 
as  had  Thomas,  with  "  the  spirit  of  old  West  Point." 
If  there  were  no  other  lesson  to  be  learned  from  that 
war,  the  example  of  loyalty,  self-sacrifice  and  devotion 
set  by  Grant,  Sherman  and  Thomas  should  live  in  his 
tory  for  all  time.  One  can  hardly  read  Grant's  letter  to 

325 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Sherman  at  this  emergency  without  a  gripping  at  the 
heart,  a  moistening  of  the  eye.  The  bill  to  make  Sher 
man,  too,  a  lieutenant-general  and  therefore  eligible 
to  command  the  army,  had  been  prepared.  The  moment 
Sherman  heard  of  it  he  wrote  to  his  brother,  long  the 
senator  from  Ohio,  to  stop  it  instantly,  and  to  Grant  in 
his  silent  sufferance  came  Sherman's  golden  words, 
"  I  should  emphatically  decline  any  command  calculated 
to  bring  us  into  rivalry." 

And  then  came  Grant's  reply.  Fancy  Marlborough 
writing  thus  to  Prince  Eugene,  Caesar  to  Antony, 
Bonaparte  to  Desaix,  Johnston  to  John  B.  Hood,  Sheri 
dan  to  Thomas,  aye,  Lee  to  Longstreet!  The  famous 
friendship  of  Damon  and  Pythias  knew  no  such  strain 
as  that  which  politics  and  politicians  thrust  into  the  lives 
of  Grant  and  Sherman,  and  yet,  strained  to  the  break 
ing  point  of  human  endurance,  superbly  did  those  two 
soldiers  bear  the  test  and  triumph  over  every  adversary 
and  adversity.  "  //  you  should  be  put  in  command  and 
I  put  subordinate,"  wrote  Grant,  "it  would  not  change 
our  relations  in  the  least.  I  would  make  the  same 
exertions  to  support  you  that  you  have  ever  done  to 
support  me,  and  I  would  do  all  in  my  power  to  make 
our  cause  win." 

But  Sherman,  as  we  know,  blocked  through  Brother 
John  the  bill  for  his  promotion,  even  as  later  he  blocked 
the  project  to  set  him  over  Grant.  It  has  pleased  many 
commentators  and  some  historians  to  refer  to  Sherman 
as  erratic,  but  where  in  all  history  can  one  read  of  finer 
constancy  in  friendship — of  franker,  stancher  loyalty 
and  self-abnegation?  Sherman  stemmed  that  "tide  in 
the  affairs  of  men  "  which  unquestionably  was  flooding 
toward  him  after  Savannah,  then  swept  Grant  skyward 
after  Appomattox.  North  and  South  alike  proclaimed 
the  silent  soldier  from  Galena  as  the  conqueror,  the  un 
disputed  chief.  North  and  South  alike  welcomed  and 
acclaimed  him.  A  triumphal  progress — in  spite  of  his 

326 


PEACE  AND  PERPLEXITIES 

shy,  retiring  self — was  that  which  awaited  him  whither 
soever  he  journeyed  in  the  Northland.  People  of  all 
classes  thronged  about  his  carriage  or  his  train,  stop 
ping  his  way,  wringing  his  hand  until  he  had  to  carry 
that  hand  in  bandages  and  the  arm  in  a  sling.  Audi 
ences  in  theatres  sprang  to  their  feet  and  shouted  when 
he  arrived.  Players  forgot  their  "  lines  "  and  applauded 
wildly  from  the  stage.  Congregations  stood  when  he 
entered  church,  and  pastors  called  down  the  blessings 
of  the  Almighty  on  the  bowed  head  and  blushing  face. 
Papers  that  had  plastered  him  with  charges  and  in 
sinuations  turned  to  fawn  upon  him  now,  with  almost 
as  offensive  praise;  but,  high  and  low,  rich  and  poor, 
great  and  humble,  the  people  of  the  loyal  North  lavished 
upon  him  tokens  of  gratitude  and  admiration  such  as 
no  American  had  ever  before  received ;  and  the  sur 
viving  men  of  the  late  disloyal  South,  disarmed  alike 
by  his  measures  and  his  magnanimity,  hung  above  their 
mantels  the  swords  he  had  spared  to  them  in  token  of 
a  soldier's  admiration  of  soldierly  valor  and  virtue,  and 
swore  that  if  any  man  could  win  them  back  to  the  flag 
of  their  fathers  it  would  be  this  plain  soldier  of  the 
West — the  man  who  having  asked  only  their  parole  of 
honor  at  surrender,  now  had  to  stand  between  them  and 
the  vengeance  which  Andrew  Johnson,  Stanton  and  a 
rabid  few  at  first  so  fiercely  demanded. 

If  ever  man  had  reason  for  believing  himself  greatest 
of  the  great,  as  the  people  settled  down  "  to  bind  up 
the  nation's  wounds,"  it  was  Ulysses  Grant;  but  he 
gathered  his  military  staff  and  his  little  family  about 
him  and  devoted  himself  assiduously  to  closing  up  the 
affairs  of  the  swiftly  disbanding  armies,  and  striving  to 
adjust  military  conditions  to  the  inevitable  reduction  in 
numbers  and  return  to  civil  control.  He  had  been  re 
ceived  at  Washington  with  almost  adulation  by  every 
government  official  from  our  great  President  down  to 
the  pages  of  the  House  of  Representatives.  Members 

327 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

of  the  Cabinet,  of  the  Supreme  Court,  of  the  Senate, 
vied  with  each  other  in  effusive  honors.  Lincoln,  sin 
cere  and  swayed  with  an  almost  overwhelming  grati 
tude  under  God  to  Grant,  was  at  last  beginning  to 
realize  the  fruits  of  his  patient,  prayerful  labor;  the 
dream  of  the  ship  under  full  sail  had  not  yet  returned, 
the  shadow  of  that  fell  coming  event  had  not  yet  been 
cast  before  him.  Heaven  had  granted  to  him  four  days 
of  unutterable  joy  as  recompense  for  four  years  of 
incomparable  service.  Then  came  the  hideous  crime 
that  was  to  stun  and  horrify  the  nation. 

Meantime  Stanton,  who  never  really  liked  Grant 
and  probably  never  much  loved  any  man,  for  those  few 
days  deferred  to  him  as  he  never  had  to  any  one.  Then 
came  the  awful  shock  of  the  assassination  (a  fate  spared 
to  Grant  because  he  had  promised  to  go  that  night  to 
join  the  children  at  Burlington),  the  sudden  disappear 
ance  from  the  scene  of  the  one  master  mind  Stanton 
measurably  bowed  to,  the  emergence  from  the  obscurity 
of  a  hotel  bedroom  to  the  White  House  of  the  in 
temperate  and  ill-balanced  politician  destined  for  the 
time  to  sit  as  president,  and  then  Stanton's  prompt  essay 
to  gain  the  upper  hand.  Under  Lincoln,  and  because  of 
the  tremendous  issues  involved,  S:tanton  for  a  year  had 
been  unable  to  dictate  to  Grant.  Now,  with  the  war 
well-nigh  ended  and  Lincoln  gone,  he  sought  to  assume 
at  once  the  supremacy  he  undoubtedly  believed  his  due. 
Almost  at  the  outset,  however,  his  aggressive  will  and 
imperious  temper  led  him  into  error  and  defeat. 

The  terms  of  the  surrender  of  Johnston's  army  to 
Sherman,  unlike  those  of  Lee  to  Grant,  were  promptly 
disavowed  by  the  administration,  and  indeed  disap 
proved  by  Grant  himself.  But  where  the  latter  would 
have  quietly  stopped  proceedings  until  suitable  terms 
could  have  been  substituted,  it  pleased  Stanton  privately 
to  denounce  Sherman  as  a  traitor,  and  to  publicly  and 
offensively  disown  and  renounce  Sherman's  actions. 

328 


PEACE  AND  PERPLEXITIES 

For  a  moment,  perhaps,  public  sentiment,  ever  excitable, 
was  with  the  implacable  Secretary,  but  another  moment's 
reflection  on  Sherman's  long  and  brilliant  record  of 
patriotic  and  soldierly  service  steadied  the  press  and 
satisfied  the  people.  Even  Grant,  usually  so  calm  and 
undemonstrative,  had  been  stirred  to  instant  action  and 
impulsive  protest  against  Stanton's  scathing  rebuke  of 
his  favorite  second.  "  It  is  infamous,  it  is  infamous !  " 
he  cried.  It  was  abominable  that  one  so  loyal,  so  gal 
lant  and  efficient  as  Sherman  had  ever  been  should 
now  by  any  man,  even  the  War  Secretary,  be  denounced 
as  a  traitor.  The  first  symptoms  of  a  breach  between 
the  new  and  accidental  President  and  the  general-in- 
chief  of  his  armies  occurred  over  this  humiliation  of 
Sherman.  The  next,  and  one  more  serious  still,  was 
that  in  which  the  President  had  sought  to  punish  cer 
tain  prominent  Confederate  officers  who,  under  the 
terms  of  their  surrender  to  Grant,  were  permitted  to 
remain  undisturbed  at  their  homes  so  long  as  they 
observed  the  parole.  Threatened  with  arrest,  they 
promptly  appealed  to  Grant,  and  now  the  new  executive 
had  a  taste  of  the  mettle  there  was  in  his  foremost 
general. 

"If  those  men  are  disturbed,  Mr.  President,"  were 
the  words  attributed  to  Grant — and  there  is  no  question 
that  whatever  the  words  the  purport  was  a  fact — "  I 
tender  at  once  my  resignation  and  submit  the  issue  to 
the  people,"  and  Andrew  Johnson  had  sense  enough 
to  know  that  as  between  himself  and  Ulysses  Grant  the 
people  would  promptly  and  crushingly  decide  for  the 
latter. 

Early,  therefore,  as  the  summer  of  '65,  differences 
had  sprung  up  between  the  General-in-chief  and  the  two 
men  whom  the  law  and  the  constitution  made  his 
superiors,  yet  the  two  had  to  stand  in  assumed  gratifica 
tion  and  complacency  whenever  they  happened  in  pub 
lic  to  appear  with  Grant,  and  to  listen  to  the  shouts  of 

329 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

the  multitude  for  the  General,  and  to  look  in  vain,  in 
that  presence,  for  any  greeting  for  themselves.  The 
day  of  the  grand  review,  when  the  Army  of  the  Potomac 
marched  up  the  avenue  with  Meade  at  its  gallant  head, 
the  throngs  in  front  of  the  White  House  went  wild 
when  Grant  stepped  to  his  place  on  the  platform,  and 
hailed  with  only  perfunctory  applause  the  coming  of 
the  hat-waving,  hand-shaking  Chief  Magistrate,  fol 
lowed  by  the  grim,  gray-bearded  War  Secretary.  The 
next  day  the  populace  shouted  itself  hoarse  when 
Tecumseh  Sherman  rode  past  at  the  head  of  his  mag 
nificently  gaunt,  sinewy,  shabbily-dressed  but  superbly 
marching  array — the  men  who  had  footed  it  over  half 
a  continent  in  his  train.  Sinewy  and  sullen  they  went 
striding  by,  those  wiry  Westerners,  with  eyes  straight 
to  the  front  and  hearts  resentfully  beating — drooping 
colors  and  sabres  as  regulations  demanded  as  they 
passed  the  constitutional  commander-in-chief  and  the 
war  minister  beside  him  who  between  them  had  held 
their  loved  general  up  to  popular  execration.  They 
were  glad  when  it  was  all  over — and  so  was  Stanton, 
for  publicly,  and  precisely  as  he  had  said,  Tecumseh 
Sherman  had  refused  the  proffered  hand  of  the  spec 
tacled  secretary  and  scouted  his  tender  of  amity.  Long 
years  later,  oddly  enough,  when  general  commanding 
the  army,  it  fell  to  Sherman's  lot  to  have  to  rebuke  the 
Commandant  of  Cadets  for  a  somewhat  similar  refusal 
to  accept  the  hand  of  his  immediate  superior,  the  Super 
intendent,  and  when  the  Commandant  had  been  offi 
cially  lectured  upon  the  gravity  of  his  misconduct  and 
the  evil  effect  his  example  would  have  upon  the  under 
graduate  body  at  West  Point,  and  assured  that  nothing 
could  justify  a  junior  in  refusing  the  hand  of  a  senior, 
the  General  was  suddenly  reminded  of  his  own  dramatic 
demonstration  of  the  spring  of  1865. 

They  all  "  harked  back  "  to  West  Point  that  year 
that  followed  the  great  surrender — all  save  Sheridan, 

330 


PEACE  AND  PERPLEXITIES 

who,  the  very  week  after  he  had  rounded  up  the  worn 
army  of  Lee  at  Appomattox,  had  been  despatched  to 
the  Rio  Grande.  Sometimes  in  groups  of  two  or  three, 
sometimes  singly,  the  great  generals  of  the  war  re 
visited  the  scene  of  their  boyish  struggles  and  studies — 
Grant,  Sherman,  Thomas  and  a  score  of  lesser  lights. 
Even  the  War  Secretary  himself  came  and  peered  curi 
ously  about  the  barracks,  the  recitation  rooms  and 
offices,  and  went  away  without  making,  or  possibly  re 
ceiving,  a  very  favorable  impression.  When  Sherman 
came  he  breezed  all  over  the  premises,  chatting  cheerily 
and  shaking  hands  with  everybody  from  the  super 
intendent  down  to  the  shoeblacks — one  of  whom  claimed 
to  have  "  shined  him  up  "  in  1840.  When  Thomas  came 
— grave,  courteous  and  dignified — the  officers  and  the 
corps  seemed  to  hang  about  him  in  something  akin  to 
reverence  such  as  the  Southerners  ever  showed  for  Lee. 
When  Grant  first  came  it  was  nearly  dark  and  very 
wintry,  and  a  great  soldier  was  being  borne  to  his  rest, 
and  the  General-in-chief,  muffled  in  huge  cape-overcoat, 
and  with  his  high  black  felt  hat  pulled  well  down  over 
his  brows,  marched  afoot  at  the  tail  of  the  procession  of 
mourners,  grim,  impassive  and  out  of  step  with  the 
wailing  music  of  the  band  and  everybody  about  him. 
That  night  when  gallant  little  Bowers  was  crushed  to 
death  under  his  eyes  at  Garrison's  Station  across  the 
Hudson,  though  filled  with  shock  and  distress  of  mind, 
the  iron  leader  of  the  war  fell  back  behind  the  mask 
of  inflexible  reserve  which  was  now  becoming  habitual, 
gave  brief  direction  that  the  body  be  carried  over  to  the 
Point,  and  went  his  instant  way  to  the  duties  awaiting 
him  at  Washington.  "  The  coldest  blooded  man  I  ever 
saw,"  said  a  bystander,  but  he  saw  the  surface  only. 

All  through  the  Southland,  too,  Grant  was  sent  by 
presidential  mandate  during  the  year  that  followed  the 
war.  Mr.  Johnson  desired  to  know  at  first  hand  the 
actual  condition  of  the  people  and  the  sentiments  of 

33i 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S   GRANT 

the  soldiers  and  statesmen  lately  in  rebellion.  He  knew 
that  to  no  man  in  the  Union  service  were  they  so  drawn 
as  they  were  to  Grant.  Everywhere  they  greeted  him 
with  respect,  deference,  often  with  gratitude,  and  at 
times  with  something  akin  to  affection  and  appeal. 
Grant  came  back  to  Washington  and  made  report  to 
the  effect  that  peace  was  possible  and  the  people  sub 
missive,  but  it  presently  transpired  that  this  report  was 
not  that  which  was  now  desired.  The  President  had  de 
termined  on  reversal  of  his  policy  and  the  congress  had 
taken  alarm.  A  very  different  condition  of  things  was 
reported  by  the  next  emissary  despatched,  and  a  very 
different  man  was  the  reporter — General  Carl  Schurz, 
destined  from  this  time  on  to  oppose  in  many  a  way  the 
great  soldier  whom,  five  years  earlier  in  the  streets  of 
St.  Louis,  he  had  passed  unnoticed— an  obscure  and 
almost  friendless  man. 


CHAPTER   XXXIII 
PROBLEMS  AND   POLITICS 

EARLY  as  the  summer  of  '66  the  nation  was  begin 
ning  to  forget  the  bitterness  of  the  war  days,  beginning 
to  tire  of  the  sight  of  soldiers  in  uniform,  beginning  to 
say,  even  in  the  North,  that  the  death  of  Lincoln  in  the 
hour  of  victory  insured  his  deathless  fame,  beginning 
to  realize  in  the  South  that  the  abominable  deed  of  their 
self -constituted  avenger  had  robbed  them  of  their  best 
and  most  powerful  friend.  Over  the  life  and  character, 
the  fate  and  fame  of  Abraham  Lincoln  there  shines  a 
lustre  so  intense  that  mortal  eye  may  not  pierce  the  veil 
that  shrouded  the  soul  within  him,  but  if  ever  God 
like  attributes  descended  upon  man,  if  ever  the  teachings 
of  the  meek  and  lowly  Son  of  Bethlehem  were  indel 
ibly  implanted  in  the  human  heart,  that  great  heart 
beat  in  the  rugged  bosom  of  him  who,  like  Him  of  old, 
was  born  in  obscurity,  bred  in  poverty,  schooled  in 
suffering,  steeped  in  sympathy,  love,  patience  and  tender 
ness  for  all  mankind.  God  alone  could  have  been  the 
strength  and  solace  of  Lincoln  during  those  four  years 
of  almost  intolerable  strain,  for  about  him,  in  his  official 
household,  there  was  not  one  man  upon  whom — as  was 
otherwise  with  Grant — he  could  unreservedly  lean; 
there  was  not  one,  on  the  contrary,  whom  he  had  not  by 
patient  pleading,  or  even  cajoling,  to  persuade  and  lead. 
There  was  not  one  woman — and  it  was  otherwise  with 
Grant — ever  at  hand  to  comfort,  to  sympathize,  to  sus- 
stain.  Over  the  pathetic  sorrow  of  Lincoln's  married 
life,  foreseen,  yet  faced  unflinchingly  and  borne  with 
infinite  patience  and  pity,  it  has  seemed  best  to  draw  the 
veil. 

Even  in  that  first  summer  following  the  disbandment 

333 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

of  the  armies,  the  people  were  realizing  something  of 
the  greatness  of  him  they  had  lost,  and  contrasting  it 
with  the  littleness  of  him  they  had  self-imposed — the 
majesty  and  magnanimity  of  the  administration  of 
Lincoln,  with  the  machinations  and  "  my  policy "  of 
Andrew  Johnson.  Yet  the  latter  implicitly  believed  in 
himself  and  thought  to  rouse  the  people  to  a  following 
such  as  they  had  denied  his  great  predecessor.  From 
having  started  with  the  threat  of  making  "  treason 
odious,"  he  had  veered  squarely  about  to  the  restoration 
of  every  right  "  the  States  in  rebellion  "  had  less  than 
six  years  earlier  renounced  and  rejected.  He  sought 
to  lead  a  new  South  to  its  old-time  supremacy,  and  the 
North  said  No!  He  sought  to  swing  by  personal 
appeal  the  people  of  the  thronging  cities  of  the  middle 
and  western  States,  and  while  "  swinging  round  the 
circle  "  to  parade  Grant  in  his  train,  as  though  Grant, 
a  popular  idol,  approved  and  supported  him.  Grant 
could  not  disobey  the  lawful  order  of  his  chief,  but  be 
fore  that  pitiable  progress  fairly  began,  found  legitimate 
means  of  escaping.  He  who  had  never  known  what  it 
was  to  "  manoeuvre "  was  finding  manoeuvring  indis 
pensable  at  Washington.  He  listened  now  in  grim  silence 
to  the  inside  history  of  that  triumphal  progress,  so 
fatuously  projected  and  so  flat  a  failure,  and  read,  with 
thankfulness  for  his  escape,  of  how  the  head  of  the 
nation  rode  through  curious  crowds  in  the  city  streets, 
vainly  bowing  right  and  left  to  unresponsive  throngs 
that  withheld  their  cheers  until  Custer's  yellow  curls 
and  starred  shoulder-straps  caught  their  eye  from  the 
fourth  or  fifth  carriage.  Never  did  President  of  these 
United  States  present  a  more  melancholy  spectacle  than 
when  Andrew  Johnson  uncovered  to  the  salute  of  some 
of  Grant's  old  regiment,  once  more  quartered  along  the 
Canadian  frontier  and  detailed  for  escort  duty  that  day 
in  Buffalo.  Never  was  there  sadder  contrast  between 
past  and  present  eminence  than  when  on  the  platform 

334 


PROBLEMS  AND  POLITICS 

in  Niagara  Square,  Millard  Fillmore,  white-haired 
erect  and  dignified,  made  the  address  of  welcome  to  the 
man  who,  like  himself,  had  stepped  from  the  vice- 
presidency  into  the  chair  of  the  chief  magistrate. 

The  acute  stage  of  the  difference  between  Johnson 
and  Grant  had  not  yet  come.  Congress,  rejoicing  in 
the  triumphant  closing  of  the  war,  had  revived  the  grade 
of  general,  rewarded  Grant  with  four  stars  and  a  sub 
stantial  salary,  and  lavished  brevets  and  honors  upon 
all  those  who  had  served  at  the  front  and  many  who 
had  not,  all  to  the  end  that  more  than  half  the  senior 
officers  of  the  regular  service  were  now  wearing  the 
uniform,  though  only  a  dozen  were  drawing  the  pay,  of 
major  or  brigadier  generals.  Almost  every  field  officer 
wore  the  yellow  sash  instead  of  the  red.  Full  many  a 
captain  marshalled  a  little  squad  of  men,  no  one  of 
whom  presumed  to  address  him  except  as  "  the  general." 
It  was  Fred  Grant's  first  summer  at  West  Point,  and 
once  or  twice  his  illustrious  father  dropped  in  upon  his 
old  school  and  found  assembled  there  almost  as  many 
generals  as  there  were  junior  officers.  The  newly 
authorized  regiments  had  not  yet  been  organized.  The 
army  was  full  of  men  recently  commanding  corps, 
divisions  and  brigades,  many  of  whom  had  to  go  back 
to  company  duty,  some  few  of  them  even  to  "  fall  in  "  as 
file  closers.  The  War  Department  was  making  it  as 
easy  as  possible  for  them.  Numerous  courts,  boards 
and  commissions  were  in  session,  giving  temporary  em 
ployment  on  their  volunteer  rank  to  regulars  who  little 
relished  the  prospect  of  garrison  duty.  Andrew  Johnson 
had  signed  the  commission  of  Ulysses  Grant  as  general, 
and  that  of  Tecumseh  Sherman  as  lieutenant-general. 
He  could  have  done  no  less.  Andrew  Johnson  had 
designated  the  eldest  son  of  the  foremost  fighter  of  the 
nation  a  cadet  "  at  large,"  and  young  Fred  was  pitched 
forthwith,  neck  and  crop,  into  the  military  melting  pot, 
where  even  paternal  power  could  help  him  little  with  the 

335 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

officers,  and  not  at  all  with  the  cadets.  If  anything, 
the  troubles  of  the  son  of  a  Somebody  were  double 
those  of  the  obscure  and  unknown — all  the  more  had  he 
to  be  taken  down  before  he  could  enter  on  the  plane 
of  absolute  equality  demanded  by  that  fiercely  demo 
cratic  autocracy — the  Battalion  of  Cadets.  Grant  the 
general,  who  more  deeply,  tenderly  and  passionately 
than  most  men  loved  his  wife  and  children,  left  Grant 
the  son  to  the  tender  mercies  of  a  lot  of  young  fellows, 
many  of  whom,  like  gallant  Griffith,  Schenck,  Hoxie, 
Sears,  Davis  and  Morton,  had  fought  valiantly  under 
him  in  the  Army  of  the  West,  were  practically  his  ap 
pointees,  and  yet  could  no  more  depart  from  the  stern 
traditions  of  the  corps  than  could  their  instructors 
diverge  from  the  standards  of  the  Academy.  That 
Fred's  later  career  as  a  cadet  was  "  eased  up  "  in  a 
measure  was  something  the  General  never  learned  until 
long  after.  Possibly,  as  was  the  case  when  Mr.  Lincoln 
would  have  welcomed  the  escape  of  Jefferson  Davis  if 
it  could  be  accomplished  "  unbeknownst  to  him,"  the 
General,  remembering  his  own  failures  in  French,  would 
have  welcomed  any  legitimately-afforded  lift  his  son 
might  be  so  lucky  as  to  receive,  but  Grant  would  never 
suggest  or  second  it.  The  Academy  passed  that  sum 
mer  from  the  control  of  the  Engineers,  as  has  previously 
been  recorded,  to  that  of  the  line,  and  late  in  August, 
Halleck's  right  bower  and  chief-of-staff,  the  very  Cap 
tain  Cullum  who  had  so  heartily  written  his  congratula 
tions  to  Grant  after  Donelson,  subordinately  and  silently 
turned  over  the  control  to  the  Captain  Pitcher  (both  now 
uniformed  as  brigadiers),  who,  in  May,  '61,  had  mus 
tered  into  service  the  Twenty-first  Illinois,  with  Sam 
Grant  at  their  head.  There  were  sad  and  sore  hearts 
among  Grant's  old  friends  and  professors  that  day. 
There  was,  on  the  other  hand,  exuberant  rejoicing 
among  some  of  his  gallant  comrades  of  Worth's  old 
division — the  men  of  Molino  and  Monterey.  It  was  the 

336 


PROBLEMS  AND  POLITICS 

work  of  Congress,  not  of  Grant,  but  he  fell  in  with  it, 
and  there  followed  a  brief  term  of  years  in  which  the 
tone  and  the  discipline  of  the  Academy  suffered  in  con 
sequence. 

The  death  and  burial  of  Winfield  Scott,  Grant's  com 
mander  at  the  gates  of  Mexico  and  his  illustrious  pred 
ecessor  in  the  generalship,  occurred  during  the  first 
week  in  June.  Possibly  it  was  this  event  which  called 
him  thither,  but  a  confidential  wire  from  Washington 
summoned  him  back  within  another  day.  The  Presi 
dent  had  determined  that,  as  Grant  would  not  order  the 
army  to  interfere  in  certain  civil  matters,  he  must  have 
at  its  head  some  soldier  more  pliant  and  sympathetic. 
It  was  quite  in  his  power  to  give  orders  direct  to  the 
army,  but  he  was  shrewd  enough  to  see  that  a  storm 
of  disapprobation  would  be  sure  to  follow,  and  he  pre 
ferred  that  this  should  break  upon  Grant,  not  himself, 
for  Mr.  Johnson  was  planning  for  a  second  term,  and 
General  Grant,  while  shutting  his  eyes  and  ears  to  all 
suggestion,  was  inevitably  looming  up  as  the  choice  of 
the  people.  Johnson  sought  to  make  Grant  the  catspaw 
— to  persuade  him  to  order  that  which  he  himself  had 
the  sagacity  to  withhold,  and  then  to  place  the  odium 
upon  the  shoulders  of  Grant.  The  scheme  failed. 
Grant  would  obey  orders,  but  no  suggestions.  Finding 
it  impossible  to  use  him  in  this  way,  Johnson  bethought 
himself  of  another.  Grant  had  ever  felt  that  the  govern 
ment  owed  reparation  to  Mexico  for  the  wrongful  war 
of  '46.  Mexico  was  now  striving  to  repel  another  ag 
gression,  that  of  the  Emperor  of  the  French  in  his 
effort  to  seat  Maximilian  upon  a  Mexican  throne.  Mr. 
Johnson  planned  to  send  Grant  as  a  diplomatic  agent 
into  Mexico,  and  to  seat  Sherman  in  his  stead  at  Wash 
ington. 

But  again  he  failed.  Grant  flatly  refused  the  "  mis 
sion."  He  would  obey  any  legitimate  order  as  a  soldier, 
he  said,  but  this  was  diplomacy  and  beyond  his  province. 
22  337 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

It  further  failed  because  wary  Sherman  as  flatly  re 
fused  to  be  party  to  any  move  toward  ousting  Grant. 
He  came  to  Washington,  as  directed,  but  went  at  once 
to  Grant;  lived  under  his  roof;  stood  shoulder  to 
shoulder  with  him  against  the  project.  Refusing  to 
supplant  his  general  in  command,  he  most  adroitly  sug 
gested  entire  willingness  to  go  in  his  stead  to  Mexico, 
and  the  President  was  caught  in  his  own  trap.  Sherman 
went,  and  Grant  remained  to  hold  the  fort. 

The  deplorable  and  memorable  breach  between  the 
President  and  his  War  Secretary — bequeathed  to  him 
from  Mr.  Lincoln's  administration — was  the  next  serious 
episode  involving  Grant.  Firmly  and  flatly  Mr.  Stan- 
ton,  with  Congress  and  the  North  behind  him,  had  bat 
tled  against  the  presidential  project  of  immediate 
universal  restoration  of  the  South  to  full  power.  John 
son  therefore  sought  to  rid  himself  of  Stanton. 
Congress  saw  to  it  that  Stanton  stayed.  The  tenure 
of  office  act,  prepared  and  passed  for  this  very  emer 
gency,  balked  the  President,  who,  failing  to  induce  the 
secretary  to  resign,  would  gladly  have  dismissed  him. 
When  Congress  adjourned,  however,  after  its  stormy 
session  of  that  summer  of  '67,  Stanton  was  promptly 
suspended  and  Grant  designated  ad  interim  to  serve  in 
his  stead.  This  was  military  duty  and  could  not  be 
evaded.  In  taking  over  the  temporary  duties  Grant 
retained  command  of  the  army,  keeping  the  offices 
entirely  separate,  spending  a  portion  of  each  day  in 
that  of  the  secretary  and  a  portion  in  that  of  the  gen 
eral.  He  also,  at  the  outset,  wrote  to  assure  the  Sec 
retary,  with  whom  he  had  been  acting  as  much  in 
accord  as  any  man  could  with  Stanton,  of  his  full 
"  appreciation  of  the  zeal,  patriotism,  firmness  and 
ability  "  with  which  Stanton  had  discharged  the  duties 
of  Secretary  of  War,  and  Mr.  Stanton,  who  well  knew 
that  Grant  could  not  refuse  to  act  as  ordered,  neverthe 
less  seemed  to  think  that  he  should  have  refused,  in  his 

338 


PROBLEMS  AND  POLITICS 

reply  to  Grant  rather  implied  that  Grant  was  in  accord 
with  the  President,  which  was  by  no  means  the  case. 

In  accepting  the  duty  imposed  upon  him,  Grant  be 
haved  toward  the  Secretary  with  far  more  tact,  courtesy 
and  consideration  than  the  Secretary  had  ever  behaved 
toward  him.  As  has  been  said,  the  moment  Grant  got 
back  to  Washington  after  the  surrender  of  Lee,  Stanton 
began  giving  him  orders  and  instructions  which  as  Sec 
retary  of  War  he  had  power  to,  but  in  which  the  Gen 
eral  should  have  been  consulted.  Stanton  had  an 
exasperating  way  of  sending  a  messenger  for  Grant, 
whose  office  as  general  of  the  army  was  across  the  way 
from  the  old  War  Department,  thereby  compelling  him 
to  drop  his  own  work,  don  his  coat  and  overshoes  (this 
was  before  the  days  of  Shepherd  and  crossable  streets), 
plod  over,  climb  stairs,  and  silently  submit  to  criticism 
of  acts  or  recommendations — not  that  Stanton  had  rea 
son  to  find  fault  with  them,  but  because  he  had  the  right 
and  wished  Grant  to  feel  it.  And  so  it  is  well  remem 
bered  that  after  Johnson's  total  failure  to  force  the 
bellicose  Secretary  from  the  Cabinet  (the  Senate  refus 
ing  to  concur  in  that  denomination),  and  Grant  refus 
ing  longer  to  occupy  the  secretarial  chair,  Stanton's  very 
first  act  on  reseating  himself  therein  was  to  send  the 
War  Department  messenger  across  the  way  with  the 
curt  intimation  that  he  needed  at  once  to  see  General 
Grant. 

And  in  refusing  to  remain  in  the  office  to  which  he 
had  been  ordered  ad  interim,  Grant  precipitated  the  rup 
ture  which  ended  at  once  and  for  all  time  his  personal 
relations  with  Andrew  Johnson  and  no  less  than  three 
of  his  cabinet — notably  Secretaries  Seward  and  Welles. 
The  President  claimed  that  Grant  had  promised  to  hold 
that  undesired  office  "  until  a  successor  could  be  ap 
pointed."  Grant  knew  that  Stanton,  by  the  decision  of 
the  Senate  on  the  I3th  of  January,  had  become,  as  it 
were,  his  own  successor,  and  reminded  the  President 

339 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

that  on  Saturday  the  nth  he  had  assured  him  that  "  on 
no  account "  could  he  consent  to  hold  the  office  "  after 
the  Senate  should  act."  All  that  Saturday  the  President 
argued,  urged  and  temporized,  but  Grant  was  firm  in 
his  stand.  They  parted  with  the  President  saying  he 
would  see  Grant  again,  and  Monday  brought  his  man 
date  to  the  General  to  attend  a  cabinet  meeting.  Grant 
had  already  locked  the  office,  handed  over  the  key  to 
the  adjutant-general  and  gone  to  his  own  desk — that  of 
the  General-in-chief  at  headquarters  of  the  army — when 
the  message  came.  Obediently  he  repaired  to  the  council 
chamber  in  the  White  House,  but  the  instant  the  Presi 
dent  addressed  him  as  "  Mr.  Secretary "  Grant  pro 
tested.  Then  came  the  direct  issue  of  veracity,  and 
Grant,  who  never  lied  in  his  life,  stood  accused  of  a 
breach  of  faith  by  the  highest,  if  not  the  best,  authority 
in  the  land. 

From  that  time  forth  Ulysses  Grant  never  spoke  to 
Andrew  Johnson,  nor  to  the  Secretaries  who  rather 
ruefully  and  reluctantly,  perhaps,  supported  the  Presi 
dent  in  his  contention ;  and  Mrs.  Grant,  making,  as  she 
ever  did,  the  General's  cause  her  own,  struck  from  her 
visiting  list  the  names  of  four  distinguished  households. 

And  that  breach  was  even  more  momentous  than  at 
first  it  might  have  seemed.  It  brought  Grant  into  direct 
personal  and  political  antagonism  with  the  President; 
it  made  him  the  leader  of  the  opposition — the  candidate 
of  the  Republican  party  for  President  of  the  United 
States. 


From  the  collection  of  V.  H.  Meserve 

JULIA  DENT  GRANT  IN   1866 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 
ON  TO  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

SIXTY-SEVEN  was  a  sorrowful  year  for  the  soldier 
Grant.  Problems  in  his  own  profession  he  had  solved 
with  ease.  Problems  political,  with  their  infinite  variety 
of  evasions,  shifts  and  subterfuges,  he  never  mastered. 
He  had  traversed  the  South  in  '66  and  found  it  silent, 
subordinate,  grieving  over  the  fate  of  Lincoln,  dreading 
the  effect  upon  its  fortunes  and  its  future.  Within 
another  year,  thanks  to  Johnson's  utter  and  astonishing 
change  of  policy,  he  found  it  suddenly  defiant,  truculent, 
with  a  certain  old-time  swaggering  class  surging  again 
to  the  top.  He  had  seen  his  sturdiest  generals,  originally 
placed  in  charge  of  the  military  districts,  swept  aside  by 
the  President.  He  had  found  himself  toward  its  close 
braved  and  set  at  naught  by  one  at  least  of  the  presi 
dential  selections  with  whom  hitherto  he  had  lived  in 
soldierly  accord,  for  whom  he  had  cherished  profound 
admiration,  and  upon  whom  he  had  bestowed  praise  and 
favors  second  only  to  those  accorded  such  as  Sherman 
and  Sheridan.  How  well  the  men  of  the  Potomac  recall 
that  dread  day  in  the  Wilderness  when  Lee's  veterans 
burst  the  lines  of  Warren  and  fell  in  savage  force  upon 
Hancock!  Back  came  aides  and  stragglers  to  where 
Grant  sat  placidly  whittling  by  the  roadside.  "  Hancock 
is  routed,"  "  Hancock  is  being  driven,"  was  their  ex 
cited  announcement,  and  "  I  don't  believe  a  word  of  it," 
was  Grant's  stolid  reply. 

"  Hancock's  a  glorious  soldier,"  said  he,  a  moment 
later,  to  the  throng  about  him,  and  so  he  hailed  him  and 
believed  him  throughout  the  war.  For  this  trait  he 
recommended  and,  not  without  opposition,  secured  for 
Hancock  a  brigadier-generalship  in  the  regular  army. 

34i 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Foremost  on  that  furious  way  to  the  James  he  set  him, 
and  foremost  of  his  corps  commanders  Grant  held  him 
even  when,  "  with  the  presidential  bee  in  his  bonnet " 
and  reopening  wounds  to  warrant  his  withdrawal,  Han 
cock  left  the  fighting  front  at  Petersburg  to  recuperate 
and  recruit  north  of  the  Potomac. 

And  now  the  most  turbulent  of  the  military  dis 
tricts  was  the  Fifth.  The  hotbed  of  the  reaction  against 
the  North  was  the  city  of  New  Orleans,  and  here  Sheri 
dan  had  been  in  command  after  his  return  from  the 
Rio-  Grande.  Here  the  unterrified  populace  fell  upon 
the  unprepared  delegates  to  a  meeting  at  the  old 
Mechanics'  Institute,  shooting  down  numbers  of  them  in 
cold  blood.  Hereupon  Sheridan  had  removed,  as  the 
laws  provided,  certain  civil  officials  who  blocked  the 
will  of  Congress.  Here,  in  spite  of  the  earnest  appeals 
of  Grant,  Sheridan,  his  beloved  cavalry  leader,  was  un 
horsed  by  order  of  the  President  (providentially  per 
haps,  for  yellow  fever  was  raging  in  New  Orleans  at 
the  time  and  a  score  of  Northern  officers  died).  Then 
came  the  frost  to  kill  the  scourge  and  Hancock  to  sup 
plant  Sheridan,  and  then — another  story.  Hancock  set 
himself  squarely  in  support  of  the  President  and  in  op 
position  to  Congress  and  his  immediate  superior,  the 
General-in-chief.  Hancock  won  eventually  the  nomina 
tion  of  the  party  he  sought  to  serve,  but  stopped  short 
of  the  presidency.  Grant,  steadfast  in  his  adherence  to 
the  will  of  Congress  and  the  union-loving  North,  went 
on  to  eight  successive  years  at  the  White  House,  and  to 
the  foremost  place  in  the  great  heart  of  the  nation. 

And  yet  for  much  more  than  a  year  he  would  listen 
to  no  suggestion  as  to  the  presidency.  Even  his  closest 
friends  of  the  old  staff,  his  pastor,  Dr.  Newman,  his 
fidus  Achates,  Rawlins,  ventured  no  more  than  cnce  to 
broach  the  subject.  First  to  make  the  essay  were  the 
Democrats,  led  by  Dick  Taylor,  of  Louisiana,  and  cer 
tain  members  of  the  House,  for  Grant  had  been  a 

342 


ON  TO  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

Douglas  man,  and  had  never  announced  himself  as  any 
thing  else.  Rawlins,  however,  was  vehemently,  fiercely 
bent  on  forcing  his  chief  to  assert  himself.  Rawlins  it 
was  who  drafted  the  letter  which  broke  the  final  link 
between  the  President  and  the  commanding  general. 
Rawlins  it  was  who  virtually  dictated  the  step  that 
made  Grant  the  unopposed,  unquestioned  standard- 
bearer  of  the  Republican  party.  The  presidential  policy 
toward  the  "  States  recently  in  rebellion  "  had  so  alarmed 
and  aroused  the  North  that  the  demand  became  incessant 
and  insistent.  A  man  was  needed  at  the  head  of  affairs 
who  could  and  would  represent  the  majority  of  the 
people;  and  who  so  deserved  their  suffrages? — who  so 
apt  to  stand  for  their  views  and  principles  in  peace  as 
he  who  so  stoutly  had  upheld  their  cause  in  war  ?  Here 
was  history  repeating  itself.  The  political  leaders  of 
the  Democratic  party  had  precipitated  the  unjust  war 
with  Mexico  in  the  hope  of  perpetuating  their  own 
power,  and  the  people  had  turned  them  down  and  ex 
alted  the  soldier  Zachary  Taylor.  And  now  again, 
statesmen  by  the  score  and  politicians  without  number 
were  virtually  bidden  to  stand  aside  and  make  way  for 
the  man  who  had  no  more  sought  to  be  president  than 
originally  he  had  sought  to  be  a  soldier — Ulysses  Grant. 
It  was  a  bitter  pill  for  the  schemers  who  had  sought 
some  way  to  trap  or  trip  the  silent  man.  Politicians  and 
the  press  resorted  to  many  a  device  to  draw  him  out  and 
then  assail  him,  but  he  would  not  be  drawn.  At  the 
first  mention  of  the  presidency  he  would  look  his  ques 
tioner  squarely  in  the  face,  his  lips  would  set  in  a 
rigid  line,  and  the  interview  would  end.  Not  to  a  soul 
about  him,  not  even  to  the  wife  he  loved  so  devotedly, 
would  he  admit  that  the  presidency  would  be  acceptable, 
until  the  year  1868  was  fairly  ushered  in.  The  National 
Convention  had  been  summoned  to  meet  at  Cincinnati, 
by  which  time  the  utterly  unsettled  condition  of  affairs 
in  the  South,  the  almost  universal  demand  of  the  press 

343 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

and  people  of  the  North  had  begun  to  convince  him  that 
he  had  a  still  higher  destiny  and  duty.  Now,  he  began 
to  listen  to  urgings,  public  and  private.  There  were 
pleadings  without  and  within  the  domestic  circle,  and 
when  Julia  Dent's  ambition  for  her  husband  overcame 
her  reluctance  to  annoy  him,  she  could  and  did  influence 
him  as  could  none  other. 

And  how  womanly,  how  natural,  it  was  that  she 
should  wish  to  see  him  seated  highest  among  the  seats 
of  the  mighty — she  who  had  chosen  him  against  the 
wishes  of  her  slave-holding  father,  she  who  had  shared 
his  poverty,  his  humiliation,  and  had  smarted  with  him 
and  for  him  under  the  slights  and  sneers,  not  only  of 
her  people  but  of  his!  Dent  the  elder,  even  as  late 

as  '62,  had  publicly  referred  to  him  as  "  that  d d 

Federal  son-in-law,"  and  had  time  and  again  before  that 
declared  against  him  as  "  of  no  earthly  account."  Grant 
the  elder  and  Grants  the  younger  had  seemed  to  find 
some  strange  satisfaction  in  showing  the  good  people  of 
Galena  how  low  they  held  their  unprotesting  soldier 
kinsman.  The  men  of  the  two  clans,  it  seems,  had  made 
up  their  minds  as  to  his  being  a  flat  failure.  It  was  the 
women — his  wife,  his  mother  and  one  at  least  of  his 
sisters — who  never  lost  faith  in  him  and  who  stood  by 
him,  triumphant,  to  the  last. 

It  was  but  natural  now  that  Julia  Dent  should  wish 
to  see  him  where  all  men  would  bow  to  him  and  most 
women  to  her.  Poor  Mrs.  Lincoln  had  taunted  and 
twitted  her  with  the  ambition  long  before  it  ever  dawned 
upon  her,  but  now  that  there  were  women  in  the  White 
House,  in  the  homes  of  officials  of  the  cabinet,  and  of 
certain  sympathizers  there  in  Washington  whom  she 
could  not  visit  and  would  not  recognize — now  that  there 
were  others  who  sought  to  patronize  and  seemed  to  con 
descend,  was  it  strange  that  she  herself  should  wish  to 
sit  where  all  must  recognize  her,  even  on  our  democratic 
plane,  as  the  first  lady  of  the  land  ? 

344 


ON  TO  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

Be  this  as  it  may,  the  spring  of  '68  found  the  Gen- 
eral-in-chief  at  last  committed  to  the  project,  and  now, 
true  to  the  Ulysses  of  old,  having  put  his  hand  to  the 
plough,  his  face  was  fixed  upon  the  goal — having  given 
that  hand  to  the  work  before  him  it  was  to  be  done  with 
all  his  might.  And  so  it  resulted  that  in  May,  '68,  on 
the  banks  of  the  beautiful  river  of  the  middle  West,  only 
a  short  ride  from  that  picturesque  birthplace,  only  an 
hour  away  from  the  fields  where,  while  yet  a  laughing 
urchin,  he  first  rode  into  prominence,  only  twenty- four 
miles  as  the  crow  flies  from  the  scene  of  his  first  boyish 
battle,  and  from  that  of  the  first  admonition  as  to  silence 
he  ever  laid  upon  his  father,  the  Republican  convention 
in  session  at  Cincinnati  unanimously  ratified  that  old- 
time  prophecy  of  the  wandering  phrenologist,  and  the 
lad  who  had  never  wished  to  be  a  soldier,  yet  had  risen 
to  be  the  greatest  in  the  nation,  the  cadet  who  had 
blushed  at  his  own  vision  of  himself  standing  in  the 
place  of  Scott,  yet  had  lived  to  stand  even  higher — the 
young  captain  who  had  won  such  fame  and  commenda 
tion  in  his  country's  battles  only  to  find  himself  de 
famed  and  condemned — the  struggling,  sickly  farmer — 
the  humble  applicant  for  county  office — the  shabby,  sor 
rowing,  debt-burdened  servitor  in  the  village  store — the 
unprotesting  victim  of  a  popular  belief  if  not  a  personal 
habit,  sustained  through  all  by  a  woman's  faith  and  de 
votion,  and  in  spite  of  all,  dauntless  and  confident  of 
ultimate  success,  had  risen  step  by  step  through  the 
ordeal  of  battle  to  the  topmost  round  of  the  ladder,  for 
that  nomination  meant  an  overwhelming  vote  and  his 
election  in  November  to  the  presidency  of  the  United 
States. 

The  chagrin  of  Mr.  Johnson  at  this  juncture  was 
only  exceeded  by  the  calm  (some  called  it  the  self-com 
placency)  of  the  president-elect.  As  placidly  as  he  re 
ceived  the  surrender  of  Buckner,  of  Pemberton,  even 
of  the  magnificent  Lee,  Grant  now  accepted  the  highest 

345 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

honors  attainable  in  our  countiy.  From  every  State  and 
from  almost  every  community  they  came  thronging 
upon  him — the  authorized  delegations  or  the  self-con 
stituted  delegates — to  tender  homage  and  congratulation, 
coupled,  as  frequently  happened,  with  incidental  sug 
gestion  as  to  appointments  to  office.  Men  high  in  the 
world  of  politics,  men  schooled  in  diplomacy  and  states 
manship,  men  skilled  in  the  arts  of  flattery  and  dis 
simulation,  men  inspired  by  hope  or  curiosity  came 
flocking  to  see  him  to  suggest,  and  especially,  if  possible, 
to  secure  his  promise  as  to  public  policy  or  personal  or 
political  patronage.  And  now  there  dawned  upon  the 
astonished  vision  of  men  hitherto  sought  and  consulted 
a  president-soon-to-be  who  asked  no  advice,  who  sat, 
smoked,  listened,  but  spake  not.  To  an  extent  little 
suspected  until  toward  the  very  last,  Grant  had  the 
faculty  of  hearing,  of  remembering  all  that  was  said, 
and,  without  giving  a  sign  that  he  was  so  doing,  of 
pondering  long  over  everything  said  and  forming  his 
own  conclusions.  And  now  the  men  whom  Lincoln 
had  been  wont  to  send  for  and  consult — not  so  much 
that  he  needed  their  advice  as  that  it  made  them  think  so, 
and  therefore  won  their  support — found  themselves  no 
longer  in  request,  and  when  they  came  and  sought  to 
advise,  found  themselves  heard  in  unresponsive  silence. 
What  seemed  most  to  sting  the  statesmen  was  the  fact 
that  Grant  still  sought  and  cherished  the  society  of 
soldiers.  Ever  about  him  were  the  men,  tried  and  true, 
with  whom  he  had  borne  the  heat  and  burden  of  many 
a  day  in  battle,  and  on  whom  he  seemed  now  to  lean, 
whereas  he  was  not  leaning  at  all. 

Senators  and  representatives,  office-holders  and  dele 
gations,  receiving  no  promise  and  in  many  cases  no  re 
sponse  as  result  of  their  suggestions,  went  away  swear 
ing  he  listened  only  to  "  swashbucklers "  about  him. 
This  was  one  of  Senator  Sumner's  bitterest  complaints. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  was  listening  to  everybody  and 

346 


ON  TO  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

talking  to  nobody.  It  was  not  long  before  his  soldier 
associates  were  becoming  almost  as  sore-hearted  as  so 
many  senators.  Some  few  there  were,  like  Ingalls  and 
Horace  Porter,  who  knew  him  well  enough  to  know 
that  he  was  carefully  observing,  deeply  thinking  and 
profoundly  planning.  Previous  to  the  election,  as 
though  anxious  to  avoid  the  allurements  and  entangle 
ments  at  Washington — the  things  Sherman  so  dreaded 
— he  had  cut  loose  from  the  capital,  as  he  had  when 
he  marched  away  from  Bruinsburg  and  into  Mississippi, 
and  had  betaken  himself  to  his  old  home  at  Galena, 
where  he  might  reflect  and  think.  Here  he  had  received 
the  notification  of  his  election  and  made  that  modest 
reply.  Then  he  had  to  return  to  his  desk  at  Washington, 
where,  though  importuned  every  living  minute  by  seekers 
innumerable,  he  pursued  his  relentless  way,  giving  no 
hint  whatsoever  of  his  intentions  or  policies,  even  to 
men  who  had  been  his  stanchest  friends — even  to  two 
who  might  almost  be  called  his  benefactors — Rawlins 
and  Washburne.  Washburne  felt  so  grieved  that  it  well- 
nigh  made  him  ill.  Rawlins  felt  so  hurt  that  it  actually 
made  him  ill,  and  he  took  his  leave  and  went  North 
ward,  cherishing  a  grievance  against  the  man  he  had  so 
devotedly  served. 

Former  presidents-elect  had  consulted  party  leaders 
by  the  score  as  to  portfolios,  policies  and  the  all-im 
portant  inaugural  address.  The  time  was  nigh  when 
the  announcements  must  be  made,  the  names  of  the 
cabinet  given  to  the  press  for  dissection  and  to  the 
Senate  for  confirmation,  and  not  a  syllable  had  been  ex 
tracted  from  this  soldier  sphinx  at  Washington. 
Badeau,  his  military  secretary,  was  with  him  hourly, 
opened  all  his  letters,  and  wrote  at  his  dictation  most  of 
his  replies.  Badeau  was  as  much  in  his  confidence  at 
this  moment  as  any  man  on  earth,  and  yet  Badeau  knew 
next  to  nothing.  Grant  well  understood  that  he  owed 
his  selection  to  the  overwhelming  demand  of  the  people 

347 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

— not  to  their  political  file  leaders.  It  is  improbable 
that  men  like  Seward,  Chase,  Sumner  or  Horace 
Greeley,  as  Badeau  declares,  would  ever  have  chosen 
Grant  for  President.  It  was  to  the  people  to  whom  he 
was  accountable  and  to  them  he  would  speak  direct, 
and  consult  no  intermediary.  It  was  a  course  which 
robbed  him  of  counsel  and  of  friendships  that  might 
have  been  of  priceless  value.  But  he  played  the  game 
as  he  liked  to  do  when  playing  euchre,  and  "  went  it 
alone."  What  is  most  remarkable,  he  did  not  even 
confide  in  her  whose  admiration  he  still  most  ardently 
craved.  She,  too,  was  worrying  over  the  situation,  the 
silence  of  her  husband,  the  clamors  of  the  press,  the 
veiled  comments  of  "  society,"  the  constant  questioning 
of  their  kindred.  She  could  not  induce  him  to  talk  of 
the  cabinet  or  of  the  inaugural  address,  which  seemed  to 
fret  her  most  of  all.  In  common  with  the  women  of 
Galena  she  believed  him  incapable  of  making  a  speech, 
and  urged  him  to  consult  Mr.  Conkling,  Mr.  Logan,  Mr. 
Washburne  and  other  gentlemen  of  eloquence  and  re 
nown,  and  he  quizzically  asked  her  was  it  their  speech 
or  his  he  was  expected  to  deliver,  and  reminded  her  still 
laughingly  that  he  had  Jesse,  Jr.,  to  fall  back  upon — 
Jesse  who  was  as  ready  as  ever  had  been  his  grand 
father  to  make  a  speech  on  any  occasion.  In  her  anxiety 
she  broached  the  matter  to  others,  and  one  day  Grant's 
prospective  brother-in-law,  Mr  Corbyn,  entered  the 
office  and  placed  in  his  hands  an  elaborate  address  which 
Corbyn  had  concluded  it  his  duty  to  write  for  him  and 
conceived  would  be  the  very  thing — an  effusion  which 
Grant  directed  Badeau  to  lock  up  and  let  no  one  see 
until  after  the  inauguration.  Never  having  consulted 
a  soul  that  Badeau  could  hear  of,  Grant  finally  sat  down 
one  afternoon  three  weeks  before  the  4th  of  March, 
and  wrote  every  word  of  the  address  he  expected  to 
deliver,  then  told  Badeau  to  read  it  and  give  him  the 
benefit  of  his  criticism.  .No  one  else  was  to  be  per- 

348 


ON  TO  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

mitted  to  see  or  hear  a  word  of  it  until  the  day  before 
its  delivery,  and  until  the  3rd  of  March,  at  least,  no 
one  did. 

A  more  amazing,  exasperating,  intractable  president 
elect  the  old-style  politicians  had  never  known,  the  press 
had  never  encountered.  Two  or  three  departures  from 
his  self-imposed  rules  he  finally  permitted,  one  for  busi 
ness  and  two  for  personal  reasons.  Casting  about  for 
a  suitable  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  he  had  settled  on 
Mr.  A.  T.  Stewart,  the  great  drygoods  merchant  of 
New  York.  In  view  of  his  immense  business  affairs 
Mr.  Stewart  was  confidentially  notified  of  Grant's  in 
tentions,  and  delightedly  made  all  preparations  to  accept. 
Then  there  were  Washburne  and  Rawlins,  hurt  and 
saddened  by  his  silence.  Washburne  unquestionably 
had  hoped  to  receive  the  office  of  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  and  so  far  from  being  gladdened,  was  ag 
grieved  when  Grant  summoned  him  to  say  that  he  was 
to  be  Secretary  of  the  Interior.  Rawlins,  who  knew  that 
a  man  of  Washburne's  eminence  would  surely  be  in  the 
cabinet,  and  who  reasoned  that  there  could  not  be  two 
from  Illinois,  had  feared  there  could  be  nothing  for  him 
self.  Grant  loved  to  spring  surprises  on  his  friends  and 
he  began  with  Rawlins.  The  once  stalwart  chief-of- 
staff  came  at  his  bidding,  wondering  what  might  be  in 
store  for  him.  He  entered  the  inner  office,  pallid  and 
sorrowing.  He  came  forth  with  sparkling  eyes  and 
springy  step,  restored  temporarily,  at  least,  to  life  and 
vigor,  but  with  his  lips  sealed  to  the  fact  conveyed  to  him 
alone — that  he  was  to  be  the  Secretary  of  War.  These 
three  men,  only,  were  notified  of  the  eminence  in  store 
for  them.  To  the  rest  of  the  world,  even  Julia  Dent, 
his  wife,  Grant  refused  all  information. 

Up  to  the  last  the  retiring  President  sought  to 
hamper  and  worry  him,  but  Stanton  had  "  ceased  from 
troubling,"  having  resigned  in  disgust  after  the  failure  of 
the  impeachment  proceedings.  Mr.  Johnson  sent  Rose- 

349 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

crans  as  minister  to  Mexico,  knowing  well  that  Grant 
would  never  do  so,  for  in  common  with  other  generals 
who  had  personally  failed,  Rosecrans,  as  Badeau  de 
clared,  had  first  joined  the  "  War  is  a  Failure  "  party, 
headed  by  McClellan,  and  later  had  met  Mr.  Johnson 
in  all  his  measures. 

Johnson  shrewdly  reasoned,  therefore,  that  the  presi 
dent-elect  might  expose  himself  to  criticism  by  seeking 
to  prevent  the  confirmation  in  the  Senate.  Grant  never 
seemed  to  notice  what  was  probably  meant  as  a  studied 
affront.  Rosecrans  went  to  his  station ;  was  received 
with  the  honors  due  an  accredited  envoy  of  the  United 
States,  and  there  his  powers  ended.  Grant  and  Romero, 
Mexico's  greatest  statesman,  were  bosom  friends,  and  a 
few  lines  from  the  military  secretary  to  Romero  had 
apprised  the  latter  that  it  might  be  advisable  to  await 
the  wishes  of  the  new  administration  before  executing 
any  important  diplomatic  business  with  the  newly  ac 
credited  minister. 

The  momentous  day  drew  nigh,  and  still  no  whisper 
of  Grant's  prospective  appointments  had  escaped  him, 
no  line  as  to  his  policies  been  accorded  to  even  the 
friendly  powers  in  the  greatest  of  the  editorial  chairs. 
Even  the  New  York  Times  and  Tribune  were  in 
the  dark.  Even  Julia  Dent,  anxious,  indeed  agitated 
at  times,  could  extract  no  word  from  him.  He  abso 
lutely  refused  to  share  her  worry  as  to  that  inaugural 
address — the  manner  of  preparation  and  the  awful 
probabilities  as  to  the  delivery  of  which  so  constantly 
were  the  subject  of  her  thoughts  and  the  burden  of  her 
song.  Then  the  great  day  arrived  and,  refusing  to  ride 
in  the  same  carriage,  as  custom  prescribed,  with  his 
predecessor,  the  silent  man  of  the  nation,  calm  and  un 
ruffled  as  in  the  storm  of  battle,  stepped  forward  in  the 
face  of  the  immense  throng  at  the  Capitol,  turning  his 
back  temporarily  upon  the  circle  of  dignitaries  seated  on 
the  platform — Julia  Dent,  quivering  with  mingled  pride 

350 


ON  TO  THE  WHITE  HOUSE 

and  dread,  seated  in  their  midst — drew  from  his  pocket 
his  carefully  penned  pages,  glanced  casually  over  the 
sea  of  faces  before  him,  and  in  the  midst  of  a  silence — 
a  strained  interest — almost  indescribable,  the  soldier 
who  never  yet  had  made  a  speech  slightly  lifted  up  his 
voice  and  began.  And  then  the  anxiety  on  the  face  of 
his  wife  gave  way  to  bewilderment,  then  to  amaze,  for, 
in  confident  tone  audible  to  every  one  upon  the  crowded 
platform  the  new  Chief  Magistrate  of  these  United 
States  delivered  to  the  very  last  word  his  brief,  sensible, 
spirited  address;  then,  even  while  receiving  impulsive 
congratulations,  made  his  way  as  speedily  as  possible 
to  where,  fluttering  with  pride  and  amaze  commingled, 
the  wife  of  his  bosom  stood  the  centre  of  a  bevy  of 
friends,  and  at  the  first  convenient  moment  quietly  ob 
served,  "  And  now,  my  dear,  I  hope  you're  satisfied." 


CHAPTER  XXXV 
PRESIDENT  AND  COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF 

OF  the  cabinet  with  which  President  Grant  started 
on  his  eight  years'  incumbency  not  one  remained  at  the 
close.  For  this  there  were  various  reasons :  As 
originally  laid  before  the  Senate  and  promptly,  though 
not  too  willingly,  confirmed  by  that  august  body,  Mr. 
Washburne  was  named  foremost  as  Secretary  of  State, 
Mr.  Stewart  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  Mr.  Borie  as 
Secretary  of  the  Navy,  Mr.  Cress  well  as  Postmaster- 
General,  Mr.  Hoar  as  Attorney- General,  and  Mr.  Cox 
as  Secretary  of  the  Interior.  The  Secretaryship  of 
War  had  been  held  for  some  months  by  General  Scho- 
field,  in  succession  to  Stanton — one  of  the  best  appoint 
ments  President  Johnson  ever  made.  Nor  was  it  the 
last  time  the  government  at  Washington  availed  itself 
of  the  statesmanship  and  soldierly  qualities  of  which 
Schofield  was  so  remarkable  a  combination.  It  was 
General  Grant's  desire  to  retain  Schofield  there  for  a 
few  weeks  until  Rawlins  could  learn  something  of  the 
intricacies  of  the  office,  then  the  latter  was  to  enter  upon 
his  duties. 

Washburne,  failing  to  get  the  Treasury  and  caring 
nothing  for  the  portfolio  of  the  Interior,  asked  that  he 
be  named  Secretary  of  State — to  start,  at  least,  as 
premier,  then  to  be  sent  to 'France.  It  was  ungenerous 
in  Washburne  to  ask  it,  and  unwise  in  Grant  to  assent, 
for  the  Senate  little  relished  the  idea  of  confirming  a 
merely  complimentary  nomination,  yet  did  it  to  show  its 
abundant  good  will  toward  Grant.  It  was  unusual,  but 
so  was  pretty  much  everything  else  about  that  cabinet. 
Mr.  Stewart,  who  entered  confidently  upon  his  duties, 
was  presently  pointed  out  to  be  ineligible  under  an  old 

352 


its 


a   co 
s    »  5 


PRESIDENT  AND  COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF 

law  prohibiting  the  appointment  to  that  office  of  "  any 
one  engaged  in  trade,"  and  Mr.  Stewart,  to  his  supreme 
regret  and  that  of  Grant,  was  compelled  to  retire.  The 
mortification  to  everybody  concerned  might  have  been 
avoided  had  Grant  consulted  men  of  experience  be 
forehand — yet  the  Senate  was  supposed  to  contain  men 
of  experience,  and  the  Senate  had  confirmed. 

Then  came  Mr.  Borie,  of  Philadelphia,  who  having 
been  in  conversation  with  his  friend,  General  Grant,  on 
the  3rd  of  March,  was  not  a  little  amazed  on  the  5th 
to  find  himself  placed  at  the  head  of  the  Navy.  It  was 
an  undesired  appointment  and,  had  he  earlier  been  noti 
fied,  Mr.  Borie  probably  would  have  had  none  of  it; 
but  now,  rather  than  further  embarrass  the  already 
embarrassed  President,  he  decided  to  remain  for  a  little 
time,  and  did  so.  Then  came  trouble  as  to  Massa 
chusetts:  Mr.  Hoar  being  the  attorney-general,  there 
was  prompt  remonstrance  when  Mr.  Boutwell,  also  of 
Massachusetts,  was  named,  vice  Stewart,  for  the  Treas 
ury.  Hoar  was  later  sacrificed,  the  Senate  refusing 
to  confirm  him  to  the  Supreme  Court.  Mr..  Wilson,  of 
Iowa,  also  had  declined  a  secretaryship,  and  Mr.  Sum- 
ner,  who  had  ardently  hoped  and  longed  to  be  Secretary 
of  State,  was  given  nothing  at  all.  The  first  statesmen 
to  fall  away  from  Grant  were  therefore  those  of  the 
old  commonwealth  of  Massachusetts. 

When  Lincoln  was  elected  he  dared  to  designate  as 
his  cabinet  ministers  the  men  who  were  his  foremost 
rivals  for  the  leadership  of  the  Republican  party, 
notably  Chase  and  Seward.  When  Grant  followed  he 
preferred  no  fellow  leaders.  What  he  thought  he 
needed  was  a  staff,  and  he  chose  the  men  personally  ac 
ceptable  to  himself  if  not  to  the  country.  It  is  safe 
to  say  that  after  his  experience  as  President  he  never 
would  have  done  it. 

It  was,  however,  a  stroke  of  supreme  good  fortune 
at  this  juncture,  if  not  of  genius,  that  prompted  him 
23  353 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

to  tender  the  State  Department  to  Hamilton  Fish,  of 
•New  York.  Therein  he  won  to  his  cause  and  that  of 
the  nation  a  gentleman  and  a  scholar,  a  strong  and 
judicious  mind.  In  many  another  way,  however,  the 
composition  of  that  cabinet  had  bred  dissension.  Mr. 
Hoar  never  fully  forgave  the  President  for  lettirg  him 
out.  Mr.  Stewart  never  ceased  to  complain  that  he 
had  been  humiliated  and  later  ignored.  Mr.  Borie, 
whose  personal  friendship  never  wavered,  positively 
refused  to  serve  longer  than  a  few  months,  and  so  the 
civil  administration  became  clouded  from  the  start. 

And  if  this  were  not  enough,  there  were  other 
sources  of  grievance.  Lincoln,  Johnson  and  most  of 
their  immediate  predecessors — even  courtly  Mr.  Bu 
chanan — had  been  easy  of  access  to  public  men,  but  now, 
said  these  latter,  "  we  can't  get  in  without  the  counter 
sign."  "  The  White  House  is  a  military  camp."  "  The 
President  has  his  sentries  set  and  his  staff  on  duty." 
"  It  is  difficult  to  get  a  word  with  him,  it  is  impossible 
to  get  a  word  out  o-f  him."  Mr.  Sumner  was  one  of 
the  senators  who  later  worked  himself  up  into  a  fury 
over  this  "  odious,  insulting,  degrading,  aide-de- 
campish  "  surrounding  of  the  presidential  chair.  The 
simple  truth  of  the  matter  was  that  Grant  desired  to 
have  at  his  beck  and  call  some  o-f  the  men  upon  whom 
he  most  relied  in  times  of  stress  and  danger.  He  had 
parted  from  his  military  staff  on  the  4th  of  March,  yet 
arranged  with  his  successor  as  commanding  general,  his 
ever  devoted  Sherman,  that  three  or  four  of  their  num 
ber  should  be  continued  nominally  on  Sherman's  staff, 
but  practically  as  aides  to  the  President.  Two  of  them, 
Horace  Porter  and  Babcock,  were  ever  about  his  desk 
as  private  and  presidential  secretaries,  and  Porter's 
supreme  capacity  for  guarding  his  chief  and  his  secrets 
exasperated  not  a  few  men  of  influence  who  sought  to 
reach  both.  Babcock  lacked  the  poise  and  impene 
trability  of  Porter,  but  for  a  time  followed  the  lead  as 

354 


PRESIDENT  AND  COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF 

far  as  possible  of  his  senior.  Badeau  had  a  room  to 
himself,  withdrawn  from  politics  and  politicians,  and 
busied  with  Grant's  military  Memoirs.  Comstock,  the 
frigid  and  unbending,  remained  but  a  brief  time,  and 
gladly  resumed  duty  with  the  Engineers.  Surely  a 
President  should  be  allowed  to  choose  his  secretaries  as 
he  pleases,  and  had  these  men  not  originally  been 
soldiers  no  offense  might  have  been  taken.  As  to  the 
fifth  in  attendance,  brother-in-law  and  former  chum, 
Frederick  Dent,  the  most  capricious  of  congressmen 
could  hardly  have  found  fault  with  that  simple-minded, 
affable,  approachable  and  utterly  unmartial  soldier.  The 
geniality  and  joviality  of  General  Dent  in  fact  became 
proverbial,  but  failed  to  mollify.  There  were  still  others 
with  whom  Grant  speedily  surrounded  himself  as  ob 
noxious  in  senatorial  eyes  as  were  the  staff.  Doing 
his  utmost  to  be  courteous,  attentive  and  patient  in  his 
dealings  with  delegations  and  individuals,  especially 
from  "  the  other  end  of  the  avenue  "  where  gleamed  the 
great  Capitol,  it  was  soon  evident  to  everybody  that  the 
President  preferred  the  society  of  the  men  whom  he  had 
known  for  years  and  upon  whose  loyalty  and  fidelity  he 
could  count  unerringly. 

Sherman  had  come  to  be  head  of  the  army,  vice 
Grant,  become  commander-in-chief.  Rawlins  was  in  the 
war  office  and  living  close  at  hand.  Rufus  Ingalls  had 
been  assigned  to  duty  not  far  away,  and,  together  with 
Stewart  Van  Vliet,  of  Sherman's  class — Van  Vliet  of 
the  snow-white  hair,  the  rubicund  nose,  the  jovial  per 
sonality,  the  resonant  laugh — these,  and  other  old 
cronies  would  often  assemble  in  the  late  afternoon,  for 
an  old  time,  camp-fire  "  powwow  "  on  the  shaded  south 
porch  of  the  White  House.  Then  there  were  two  or 
three  prominent  and  well-to-do  citizens — men  who  drove 
the  best  roadsters  about  Washington,  and  Grant,  who 
had  abandoned  riding,  dearly  loved  to  hold  the  reins 
over  a  thoroughbred  trotter  when,  as  some  indignant 

355 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

committeeman  would  have  it,  he  should  have  been 
closeted  with  him  and  giving  attentive  ear  as  to  this 
collectorship  or  that  post  office. 

Elected  on  the  Republican  platform,  he  affronted 
certain  conventionalists  by  the  adoption  of  democratic 
planks.  While  he  would  not  set  foot  in  a  street  car,  he 
would  saunter  at  evening  about  the  streets,  sometimes 
chatting  with  a  friend,  sometimes  gazing  into  shop 
windows,  but  always  smoking.  While  former  presi 
dents  had  accepted  no  invitations  to  dinner  or  similar 
attentions,  he  liked  to  dine  with  his  cabinet,  enjoyed 
evening  visits  at  the  homes  of  Washington  friends,  and 
often  with  Mrs.  Grant,  yet  sometimes  without  her,  was 
quite  accustomed  when  he  felt  in  the  mood  for  a  chat, 
to  take  his  hat,  light  a  fresh  cigar,  and  sally  forth  with 
out  so  much  as  a  word  to  even  Crook,  the  faithful  Fifth 
Cavalry  door  keeper.  Indeed  the  Fifth  Cavalry  were 
kept  in  evidence  about  the  White  House  longer  than 
even  other  army  folk  thought  justifiable.  That  sterling 
Pennsylvania  soldier,  "  Jule  "  Mason,  had  captained  the 
bodyguard  of  the  General-in-chief  at  City  Point,  and  he 
and  his  famous  troop  had  followed  him  to  Washington, 
supplying  the  innumerable  orderlies  and  messengers  still 
maintained  about  the  White  House  and  War  Depart 
ment,  and  long  months  after  Grant  had  become  Presi 
dent,  and  the  rest  of  the  regiment  had  been  chasing 
Ku  Klux  or  fighting  Cheyennes  and  Sioux.  Then  Sher 
man  shipped  the  bodyguard  to  Wyoming  and  speedily 
followed  their  exit  by  prescribing  his  own  to  St.  Louis. 
The  atmosphere  at  Washington  had  become  charged 
with  elements  the  man  of  the  march  to  the  sea  declared 
intolerable. 

It  had  been  Stanton's  imperious  way,  as  we  have 
said,  to  send  for  Grant  when  he  wanted  to  see  him, 
sometimes  when  it  was  unnecessary.  It  became  presently 
noticeable  that  the  President  considered  such  methods 
beneath  him.  When  he  wished  to  see  and  talk  with  a  Sec- 

356 


PRESIDENT  AND  COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF 

retary  or  Senator  he  saw  no  reason  why  he  should  not  do 
it  in  the  simplest  way,  by  stepping  out  in  search  of  him. 
When  full  of  a  subject  and  desirous  of  clinching  his 
point,  the  President  set  about  doing  it  just  as  he  would 
send  Sheridan  off  on  a  raid  or  Meade  in  to  headlong 
assault — by  going  over  and  saying  so.  This  trait 
scandalized  Charles  Sumner — one  of  the  ablest  men  that 
ever  sat  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  and  un 
questionably  the  most  arrogant  and  domineering.  It 
was  one  of  the  early  sorrows  of  Grant's  administration 
that  he  could  never  win  the  support  of  Mr.  Sumner, 
for  whose  scholarship  and  statesmanship  he  had  con 
ceived  sincere  regard.  Feeling  this  admiration  for 
Sumner,  although  he  would  not  make  him  Secretary  of 
State,  well  knowing  that  the  secretary  would  promptly 
strive  to  be  the  master,  he  had  not  scrupled,  when  the 
San  Domingo  question  was  up  for  action,  to  step  round 
to  the  Senator's  house  one  evening  and  say  that  the 
President  would  like  to  speak  with  him  a  minute.  As 
luck  would  have  it,  the  great  chairman  of  the  senate 
committee  on  foreign  relations  was  entertaining  friends 
at  dinner  and  expounding  on  some  pet  theme  when  in 
terrupted  by  the  butler's  announcement.  He  could  not 
deny  himself  to  the  chief  magistrate,  nor  could  he  con 
ceal  his  sense  of  offended  dignity.  He  never  forgave 
Grant  for  what  in  his  simplicity  the  latter  deemed  an 
evidence  of  his  desire  to  personally  consult  the  views 
and  wishes  of  the  great  leader.  Grant  never  sought 
him  again. 

Sensitive  to  the  core,  though  silent  as  the  grave,  as 
to  slights  and  indignities,  Grant  would  not  speak  of  a 
wrong  or  injustice  done  him.  He  ceased  to  speak  to 
the  dealer,  as  in  the  case  of  Johnson  and  certain  of  his 
secretaries,  and  he  soon  had  other  difficulties,  not  of 
his  own  making.  Yet  Sumner  saw  fit  in  his  bitter 
speech  to  refer  to  him  as  "  the  great  quarreler,"  hold 
ing  that  the  President  had  no  right  to  quarrel  with  any- 

357 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

body.  In  spite,  therefore,  of  the  happiness  it  gave  him 
to  see  Mrs.  Grant's  high  content  in  her  station  as  "  first 
lady  "  and  leader  of  social  Washington ;  in  spite  of  the 
pleasure  it  gave  him  to  keep  many  an  old  friend  about 
him  and  of  making  many  a  new,  Grant  was  often  glad 
to  get  away  from  Washington,  and  during  the  five  years 
in  which  his  first-born  was  struggling  through  the  Mili 
tary  Academy,  the  President  frequently  appeared  and 
temporarily  took  up  his  abode,  dwelling  with  his  wife 
and  his  winsome  little  daughter  at  the  old  hotel,  and, 
except  for  sympathetic  anxieties  on  account  of  Cadet 
Fred,  enjoying  himself  hugely. 

Fred  had  little  of  his  father's  gift  for  mathematics, 
all  of  his  failing  in  French,  and  more  than  his  indiffer 
ence  to  regulations.  The  lad  brought  with  him  to  the 
Academy  the  traditions  and  mannerisms  of  that  famous 
fighting  command,  the  Army  of  the  Tennessee.  He  had 
picked  up  the  vernacular  of  the  camp  and  the  free-and- 
easy  methods  of  their  campaigning,  and  it  speedily  de 
veloped  that  Fred  was  going  to  have  a  hard  time  get 
ting  through.  Moreover,  these  were  his  callow  days, 
and  he  had  been  somewhat  spoiled  by  a  fond  mother 
and  a  doting  sister.  The  stern  old  regime  of  the  Point 
was  changing.  Mahan  was  breaking  mentally,  Bartlett 
and  Church  were  visibly  aging.  The  rigid  discipline  of 
the  scholastic  Engineers  had  given  place  to  the  more 
elastic  ways  of  the  line.  In  former  days  deficiency  in 
any  branch  meant  dissolution — the  cadet  dropped  out 
entirely.  When  Fred  proved  totally  deficient  in  French, 
the  new  administration,  headed  by  stanch  old  friends 
of  the  President,  pointed  out  that  in  spite  of  short 
comings  in  languages  and  laxity  in  deportment,  the 
Grant  of  '43  had  later  made  an  unparalleled  record  in 
soldiership;  had  ten  thousand  times  over  repaid  the 
people  the  cost  of  his  education  and  keep  at  the  Point, 
and  that  now  the  nation  could  well  afford  to  take  a 
chance  as  to  the  Grant  of  the  future.  Everybody  really 

358 


PRESIDENT  AND  COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF  , 

liked  the  young  fellow.  He  was  frank,  cheery,  good 
natured,  as  the  father  ever  had  been,  yet  by  no  means 
as  "  cadet-wise."  Like  his  father,  he  appeared  to  best 
advantage  in  saddle.  His  figure  was  fine,  his  seat  was 
firm,  and  he  rode  straight  and  well.  The  elders  of  the 
Academic  Board  who  had  schooled  his  father  through, 
strove  hard  to  carry  the  son,  but  even  the  scion  of  the 
chief  magistrate  had  to  bow  to  the  inexorable  ruling  of 
the  Point,  and  to  fall  back  into  a  lower  class  when  he 
could  not  keep  up  with  his  own.  Finally,  by  the  "  skin 
of  his  teeth  "  and  in  spite  of  academic  "  skins "  and 
sins  innumerable,  Fred  managed  to  squirm  through 
and  be  graduated  with  the  class  of  1871,  and  great  was 
the  rejoicing  of  the  household  of  Grant  and  the  laugh 
ing  delight  of  the  corps.  With  his  fellows  he  had  put 
on  no  airs  whatsoever,  and  from  the  start  had  been,  if 
anything,  almost  too  "  hail  fellow  well  met."  The 
younger  brother  of  Rawlins  had  been  appointed,  and 
dropped  as  hopeless  within  the  six  months;  the  sons 
of  famous  and  beloved  generals  and  admirals  had  en 
tered,  failed  and  vanished.  The  President  must  have 
felt  a  sensation  of  infinite  relief  when  early  in  June,  '71, 
he  came  to  the  Point  to  see  Fred  graduated,  for  during 
that  summer  he  seemed  at  his  best. 

He  sat  at  table  at  the  old  West  Point  Hotel,  with 
Mrs.  Grant  and  a  bevy  of  her  friends  about  him ;  he 
bloomed  in  the  sunshine  of  her  smile  and  the  presence 
of  attractive  women ;  he  laughed  delightedly  over  good 
stories  (he  never  would  listen  to  a  bad  one),  and  in 
spite  of  his  aversion  to  French  he  saw  the  point  and 
shouted  with  merriment  when  told  that  some  one  at  an 
adjoining  table,  selecting  ris  de  veau  from  the  day's 
menu,  complained  that  though  supplied  with  the  veal 
she  was  refused  the  rice,  and  that  was  what  she  most 
desired.  He  was  tickled  immensely  over  a  story  then 
current  about  his  new  war  secretary,  Belknap,  of  Iowa, 
who,  in  '71,  was  in  the  pride  and  heyday  of  his  admin- 

359 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

istration.  Belknap  had  just  married  a  beautiful  young 
widow,  Mrs.  Bowers,  and  was  deeply  enamored.  To  the 
War  Department  at  this  time  came  General  Robert 
Williams,  one  of  the  most  courteous,  consistent  and  dig 
nified  soldiers  of  the  old  school  then  left  to  the  army — 
its  exemplar,  in  fact,  of  punctilio  and  deportment.  Wil 
liams,  some  years  before,  had  wooed  and  won  the  lovely 
relict  of  the  late  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  and  was  as  de 
voted  a  husband  as  he  was  debonair  a  soldier.  Genially, 
jovially  accosting  him,  when  the  new  adjutant  came 
to  pay  his  respects,  Belknap  shouted :  "  Hello,  Williams ! 
Glad  to  see  you!  How  is  Mrs.  Douglas?"  And  with 
unflinching  gravity  and  aplomb  came  the  answer: 
"  Very  well,  thank  you,  Mr.  Secretary,  and  how  is — er 
— Mrs.  Bowers?" 

In  those  days  the  West  Point  Hotel  was  managed  by 
Theodore  Cozzens,  a  genial  host,  while  the  big  establish 
ment  perched  on  the  cliff  above  Highland  Falls,  a  mile 
below  the  Point,  was  presided  over  by  his  brother, 
Sylvanus.  The  iron-clad  rules  of  the  West  Point  Hotel 
prohibited  the  sale  of  wines  or  liquors,  but  Theodore 
in  his  private  rooms  in  the  basement  kept  a  choice  sup 
ply  for  his  chosen  friends,  and  thither  the  President 
repaired  when  he  wished  to  chat  in  comfort,  perchance 
over  a  glass  of  wine  and  a  cigar.  Much  of  the  time  of 
the  presidency  he  was  a  total  abstainer,  turning  down 
his  wine  glasses  at  table  even  at  diplomatic  dinners,  but 
always  providing  the  best  he  could  buy  for  the  guests 
whom  he  honored  with  invitations. 

And  this  basement  branch  of  the  executive  office  led 
to  the  first  personal  meeting  of  the  present  writer  with 
his  great  admiration,  the  President.  It  was  a  breathless 
evening,  warm,  dark  and  moonless,  and  a  bevy  of 
young  girls  and  officers  were  gathered  on  the  north 
piazza.  A  bright  gleam  of  light  from  the  hanging  lamps 
and  the  open  hallway  illumined  the  broad  flight  of  steps 
leading  from  the  piazza  to  the  terrace  below,  leaving 

360 


PRESIDENT  AND  COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF 

everything  to  the  right  and  left  of  the  stairs  in  black 
ness  and  gloom.  Some  laughing  remark  had  led  to  a 
playful  attack  on  one  of  the  party,  and  in  effort  to 
escape,  he  went  bounding  down  the  steep  flight,  five 
steps  at  a  jump,  and  with  all  the  impetus  of  the  rush, 
collided  forcefully  with  a  sturdy  form  in  sombre  black, 
just  rounding  into  view  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs.  A 
silk  hat  went  spinning  down  the  lighted  pathway,  a  burn 
ing  cigar  shot  into  space,  the  burly  form  recoiled  from 
the  sudden  impact,  and  the  subaltern  at  fault,  springing 
on  after  the  hat,  recovered  it,  brought  it  back,  care 
fully  wiping  it  with  his  handkerchief  and,  all  contrition 
and  confusion,  began  his  hurried  apology  to  the  black 
object  slowly  heaving  once  more  into  view.  He  had 
got  as  far  as :  "I  beg  ten  thousand  pardons,  sir ;  it  was 
most  careless,  but  I  declare  I  never  met  anybody  com 
ing  round  that  corner  before"  (it  was  the  turn  to 
Theodore's  private  apartments) — and  just  then  the  light 
fell  upon  the  bearded  features  of  the  lately  battered, 
and  there,  fumbling  in  his  pockets  for  a  fresh  cigar  be 
fore  resuming  the  restored  hat,  stood,  all  unruffled  in 
spite  of  the  recent  concussion,  the  Chief  Magistrate 
of  the  nation,  and  all  that  eminent  personage  had  to 
say,  either  by  way  of  rebuke  or  remission  of  sins,  he 
condensed  in  three  monosyllables  and  nine  letters: 
'"Got  a  light?"  It  almost  put  the  sorely  disturbed 
subaltern  once  more  at  his  ease. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI  • 
STORM  AND  STRESS 

BRIEF  indeed  were  the  days  of  happiness  allotted  to 
Ulysses  Grant  as  President  of  the  United  States. 
Stanch,  strong  and  true  as  were  many  of  his  adherents, 
there  seemed  to  be  an  ever-increasing  clamor  against 
him  or  against  those  about  him.  For  every  important 
office  at  his  disposal  he  had  found  rival  applicants  in 
embarrassing  numbers.  In  any  event  far  more  could 
be  aggrieved  than  appointed,  and  the  aggrieved,  with 
their  backers,  returned  from  Washington  filled  with 
bitterness.  No  President,  of  course,  escaped  this  con 
dition  of  things,  but  in  the  case  of  Grant  it  was  made 
worse  by  the  undoubted  prominence  of  many  of  the 
applicants,  and  the  doubtful  merit  of  so  many  of  the 
appointees.  Senator  Sumner  and  his  admirers  believed 
that  eminent  statesman  the  logical  successor  of  Mr. 
Secretary  Seward  in  the  Department  of  State.  Mr. 
Sumner  had  more  than  once  expected  to  supplant  Mr. 
Seward  during  the  days  of  Lincoln,  had  counted  on 
becoming  premier  of  the  cabinet  upon  the  impeachment 
of  President  Johnson,  and  the  resultant  elevation  of 
Mr.  Wade.  Mr.  Sumner  had  personally  disapproved, 
but  publicly  supported,  the  election  of  General  Grant, 
and  then,  as  it  were,  presented  through  his  emissaries 
his  bill  for  services  rendered,  and  the  virtual  demand 
for  payment  in  shape  of  the  portfolio  of  state.  This, 
as  we  have  seen,  was  given  temporarily  to  the  man 
who  had  done  more  for  Grant  than  all  the  Senate  com 
bined  ;  but,  having  given  preference  thus  to  a  mere  rep 
resentative  over  a  senatorial  applicant,  and  that  senator 
The  Senator  from  Massachusetts,  the  act  was  un 
pardonable  in  the  eyes  of  Mr.  Sumner,  who  forthwith 

362 


STORM  AND  STRESS 

found  in  almost  every  appointment  of  President  Grant 
a  bit  of  bargain  and  sale  business  reprehensible  in  the 
last  degree.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  General  Grant's 
original  cabinet  was  selected  very  much  on  the  same 
principle  which  prompted  his  selection  of  a  military 
staff. 

Mr.  Sumner  and  Mr.  Fish  had  been  strong  personal 
and  political  friends  until  the  latter  was  named  for  the 
very  portfolio  Sumner  so  craved  for  himself,  and 
though  their  friendship  and  intercourse  continued  a 
few  months  longer,  it  could  not  stand  the  test  of  Sum- 
ner's  imperious  temper  and  his  venomous  pursuit  of 
the  President.  Mr.  Fish,  a  gentleman  "  to  the  man 
ner  born,"  bore  with  Sumner  long  after  Mr.  Sumner 
had  broken  with  the  President.  Mr.  Fish  sorrowed 
for  his  old  friend  and  associate  of  senatorial  days  and 
had  long  striven  to  comfort  and  sustain  him.  Like  Mr. 
Lincoln,  Senator  Sumner  was  most  unhappy  in  his 
domestic  relations.  Unlike  Mr.  Lincoln,  he  could  not 
manfully  bear  his  trouble;  and  when  Mr.  Fish  found 
him  sobbing  like  a  child  over  his  wounded  feelings,  and 
besought  him  to  take  a  run  to  Europe  for  a  time  and 
get  away  from  the  scene  of  his  struggles  and  his  sor 
rows,  he  added  impulsively :  "  How  would  you  like  to 
be  minister  to  England  ?  "  Now,  this  was  but  a  year 
after  Grant's  inauguration.  Sumner,  after  first  seeming 
to  acquiesce  in  the  President's  views  as  to  Samana  Bay 
and  San  Domingo,  had  taken  to  violent  opposition.  To 
the  amaze  and  indignation  of  both  General  Grant  and 
Mr.  Secretary  Fish,  the  papers  were  presently  accusing 
them  of  seeking  to  bribe  Senator  Sumner  to  change  his 
vote  or  his  views.  The  authority  for  the  statement 
was  Mr.  Sumner  himself,  the  base  of  it  Mr.  Fish's  im 
pulsive  and  unauthorized  proposition  as  to  the  mission 
to  the  Court  of  St.  James.  The  next  three  years  of 
Grant's  first  administration  found  the  Chairman  of  the 
Committee  on  Foreign  Relations  in  constant  opposition 

363 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

to  the  President  and  the  Secretary  of  State.  The  close 
of  the  first  term  found  Senator  Sumner  Grant's  most 
vehement  opponent  for  a  second  nomination  and  elec 
tion.  The  people  by  a  solid  majority  vindicated  Grant, 
and  the  Senate  deposed  Sumner  from  that  all-impor 
tant  chairmanship.  It  broke  the  power,  if  indeed  it  did 
not  break  the  heart,  of  Sumner,  who  speedily  fell  ill,  and 
within  the  second  year  of  the  second  term  had  suc 
cumbed  to  angina  pectoris.  When  it  is  remembered 
that  the  basis  of  the  Treaty  of  Washington,  as  proposed 
and  insisted  upon  by  Senator  Sumner,  was  "  the  with 
drawal  of  the  British  flag  from  this  hemisphere — in 
cluding  the  provinces  and  islands,"  one  can  well  ap 
preciate  the  descriptive  of  "  far-reaching "  as  applied 
to  his  statesmanship.  It  is  idle  to  speculate  over  what 
John  Bull  might  have  said  and  done  had  Sumner  pre 
vailed.  It  is  singular  that  the  apostle  of  peace  in  our 
country  is  sometimes  author  of  a  policy  which  can  result 
only  in  bitter  war. 

The  outcry  against  and  opposition  to  Grant  toward 
the  close  of  his  first  term  took  shape  in  calumny  of 
every  kind  in  the  public  press,  in  assaults  upon  his  honor, 
integrity  and  intentions,  with  Senator  Sumner  as  head 
and  front  of  the  move  in  Congress.  Pretty  much  every 
thing  said  in  the  papers  was  but  amplification  of  what 
Mr.  Sumner  said  in  the  Senate.  Let  us  briefly  con 
sider  this: 

Paraphrasing  Lord  Durham,  Mr.  Sumner  had  de 
manded  the  downfall  of  this  "  odious,  insulting,  de 
grading,  aide-de-campish,  incapable  administration." 
Odious,  insulting  and  degrading  it  might  have  seemed 
to  Sumner,  but  the  citizens  at  large  did  not  so  find,  and 
declared  against  him.  "  Aide-de-campish  "  it  may  have 
been,  though  not  to  the  extent  practised  openly  in  later 
years.  No  one  hitherto  seemed  to  have  questioned  the 
right  of  a  President  to  choose  his  private  secretaries.  An 
officer  is  no  less  a  citizen  because  of  his  soldiership. 

364 


STORM  AND  STRESS 

In  point  of  fact,  he  is  more  of  a  citizen  since  he  can 
be  expected  and  required  to  act  as  the  government 
wishes — something  the  sovereign  citizen  often  flatly  de 
clines.  Surely  the  secretaries  selected  were  as  brainy 
and  efficient  as  any  of  Grant's  acquaintance  who  could 
be  chosen  from  civil  life.  Moreover,  they  did  the  work 
on  their  army  pay  and  saved  to  the  state  the  salaries 
provided  for  civil  incumbents.  The  papers,  of  course, 
made  no  mention  of,  and  possibly  saw  no  merit  in,  that. 
As  for  the  politicians,  it  was  simply  a  case  of  so  much 
pay  and  patronage  wasted. 

The  crux  of  that  complaint  may  be  found  in  the 
•fact  that  most  private  and  presidential  secretaries, 
known  to  Washington  society  before  the  days  of  Grant, 
had  been  nominees  or  possibly  pupils  of  men  prominent 
in  political  life — schooled  in  the  ways  of,  and  in  the 
observance  demanded  by,  politicians.  Even  when  men 
were  chosen,  as  were  John  Hay  and  Nicolay  by  Mr. 
Lincoln,  because  of  brains  and  qualifications  of  their 
own,  there  was  sure  to  be  a  criticism,  but  Lincoln  in  his 
inimitable  way  could  placate  the  complainant.  One 
irate  war  governor  who  appealed  to  him,  indignant  at 
being  detained  a  few  minutes  by  Mr.  Hay  until  the  Presi 
dent  could  dispose  of  an  importunate  caller,  furnishes 
a  case  in  point.  Lincoln  listened  all  patience  and  ap 
parent  sympathy,  then  disarmed,  or  at  least  mollified,  his 
angry  visitor  by  the  whimsical  point  of  his  reply: 
"  Governor,  you  and  I  are  in  the  same  boat,  and  we 
will  have  to  help  each  other  out.  Do  you  know  that  that 
young  man  has  had  to  act  for  me  and  think  for  me  so 
often,  and  has  helped  me  so  much,  that  the  chances 
are  that  he  sometimes  thinks  he  is  the  president,  and, 
Governor,  I  let  him  think  so." 

It  was  no  more  consolatory,  perhaps,  than  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  response  to  the  influential  statesman  who  came 
to  lodge  furious  complaint  against  General  Sherman 
for  threatening  to  hang  a  certain  constituent  of  his  if 

365 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

ever  again  that  constituent  showed  himself  within  the 
lines  of  the  Army  of  the  Tennessee — "  That  is  serious ; 
that  is  indeed  serious,"  said  Lincoln,  reflectively.  "  I 
know  that  fellow  Sherman.  He's  a  man  of  his  word. 
Take  my  advice,  Senator,  and  tell  your  friend  to  give 
him  a  wide  berth,  for  if  he  said  he'll  hang  him,  he'll 
do  it." 

But  Lincoln  had  been  gifted  as  Grant  had  not,  and 
the  latter  when  assailed  promptly  showed  fight  or  else 
stood  mute.  With  the  press  he  was  widely  at  odds 
almost  from  the  start,  with  the  odds  on  the  side  of  the 
press,  the  President  and  his  defenders  being  confined 
to  mere  statement  of  facts.  It  mattered  little  now  that 
he  might  be  the  most  abstinent  of  men,  that  he  had  not 
always  been  so  gave  abundant  opening  for  reportorial 
flights.  It  mattered  little  that  Grant's  admirations,  those 
swift  pacers  or  trotters,  were  the  property  of  men  high 
in  business  or  professional  standing,  his  old-time  love 
for  a  good  horse  led  to  the  newspaper  claim  that  his 
boon  companions  were  "  horse  jockeys  "  and  "  swag 
gering  dragoons." 

There  was  not  a  symptom  of  swagger  about  the  four 
officers  on  duty:  Badeau  wore  spectacles  and  a  crip 
pled  foot,  Dent  a  perpetual  smile,  Babcock  the  look 
rather  of  the  politician  than  the  soldier  (and  in  due 
season  developed  some  of  the  characteristics),  and  none 
of  them  wore  uniform.  As  for  Porter — Porter,  with 
his  inscrutable  face,  his  consummate  poise  and  sang 
froid — Porter  who,  with  sepulchral  gravity,  could  say 
the  most  side-splitting  things — Porter  was  a  joy  peren 
nial  to  his  chief  and  a  tower  of  strength  to  his  admin 
istration,  but  the  fact  remained  that  they  were  all  four 
of  the  army  and  that  was  enough  in  the  eyes  of  the 
fault-finders.  Four  long  years  Porter  stood  by  his  Gen 
eral,  but  at  the  close  of  the  first  administration  he  had 
the  deep  sagacity  to  look  to  the  future  and  accept  a 
more  lucrative  and  far  less  hazardous  employment. 

366 


STORM  AND  STRESS 

"  More  reprehensible  .  '  '.  .  more  illegal  than 
anything  alleged  against  Andrew  Johnson,"  declared 
Mr.  Sumner,  in  his  famous  assault  upon  the  President, 
and  yet  the  only  acts  of  alleged  illegality  as  against  the 
array  charged  to  Johnson,  was  General  Grant's  tentative 
in  sending  a  staff  officer  (Babcock)  to  sound  the  San 
Domingo  officials  as  to  a  future  connection  with  the 
United  States.  That  Babcock  should  have  announced 
himself  as  "'  aide-de-camp  to  the  President,"  and  should 
have  had  one  of  our  prehistoric  tubs  from  the  navy  to 
paddle  him  about  the  islands  of  the  Antilles,  were  both 
ill-advised — not  that  there  was  anything  much  amiss 
in  the  use  of  either  the  title  or  the  ship,  but  that  Sumner 
made  it  so  appear.  And  people  of  the  good  old  Bay 
State,  who  long  had  sat  and  worshipped  at  the  feet  of 
Sumner,  were  now  aghast  at  the  revealed  depravity 
of  the  general  of  their  admiration,  thus  become  exposed 
as  a  military  despot.  The  legislature  of  his  State,  how 
ever,  did  not  so  comprehensively  swallow  Mr.  Sumner s 
slander,  and  notwithstanding  his  eminence,  resented 
his  joining  hands  with  the  "  anything-to-beat-Grant " 
element,  and  actually  passed  a  vote  of  censure. 

But  there  were  two  charges  made  by  Mr.  Sumner 
which  the  soldiers  about  Grant  could  not  effectively 
combat,  and  against  which  Rawlins,  in  part*at  least,  is 
known  to  have  warned  him — the  acceptance  o.f  gifts  and 
the  appointment  of  relatives  to  office.  As  to  the  former 
there  was  absolutely  no  reason  why  Grant  should  have 
declined  the  gifts  in  the  way  of  boxes  of  cigars,  brands 
of  tobacco,  pipes  of  briar  or  meerschaum  and  all  man 
ner  of  little  things  that  came  from  genuine  and  admir 
ing  friends.  There  was  no  reason  why  he  should  not 
have  accepted  the  house  and  homestead  tendered  him  by 
a  grateful  community,  and  having  accepted  one,  was 
there  reason  why  he  should  decline  to  accept  those  of 
others?  The  great  trouble  growing  out  of  it  all  was 
that  some  gifts  were  not  as  innocuous,  and  some  givers 

367 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

not  as  disinterested  as  others.  Mr.  Borie,  of  Phila 
delphia,  was  probably  one  of  the  subscribers,  and  pos 
sibly  one  of  the  prime  movers,  in  the  purchase  of  the 
Philadelphia  homestead,  and  Senator  Sumner  did  not 
scruple  to  declare  Mr.  Borie's  appointment  as  Secre 
tary  of  the  Navy  a  quid  pro  quo  on  the  part  of  Grant ; 
whereas  Mr.  Borie  never  sought,  never  wanted,  and 
speedily  rid  himself  of  that  portfolio,  and  accepted  it 
only  to  save  Grant  from  temporary  embarrassment. 

Most  of  the  gifts  lavished  upon  Grant  were  just 
such  as  successful  generals  had  accepted  without  re 
proach  in  days  gone  by,  but  Grant's  came  in  swarms 
and  continued  after  his  nomination  and  election.  Wash 
ington,  under  similar  circumstances,  had  loftily  de 
clined,  but  these  gifts  gave  infinite  pleasure  to  that 
power  behind  our  silent  soldier's  sword — his  wife — and 
what  Julia  Dent  very  much  approved,  Grant  could 
seldom  deny.  But  that  he  did  at  times  assert  himself, 
and  oppose  her,  was  apparent  in  his  declination  of  the 
third  nomination  suggested  toward  the  close  of  the 
second  term.  Mrs.  Grant  ardently  hoped  and  prayed 
that  her  husband  would  accept  a  third  term,  confidently 
believing  it  could  be  his.  Sherman,  Badeau  and  certain 
of  his  military  counsellors,  at  least,  were  set  against  it. 
So  were  the  wisest  of  his  civil  advisers — Secretary  Fish, 
especially. 

As  to  that  charge  of  "  nepotism "  which  Sumner 
exploited  and  the  press  had  long  proclaimed,  it  must 
be  owned  that  to  a  degree  achieved  by  the  kith  and  kin, 
by  blood  or  marriage,  of  no  other  occupant  of  the  presi 
dential  chair,  the  relatives  of  Ulysses  Grant  succeeded 
in  scrambling  somehow  into  place.  Early  in  his  career 
as  a  general,  as  we  have  seen,  they  essayed  to  "  work  " 
him  in  the  West.  Once  fairly  installed  at  the  White 
House  it  appears  that  he  had  not  to  be  importuned, 
nor  were  the  chosen  ones  to  be  charged  in  many  cases 
to  Mrs.  Grant.  There  were  brothers-in  law,  nephews 

368 


STORM  AND  STRESS 

and  cousins ;  and  two  of  the  brothers-in-law,  at  least, 
were  given  highly  important  posts.  The  claim  that  no 
less  than  thirteen — some  newspapers  put  it  at  forty — of 
the  President's  appointees  were  family  connections, 
injured  him  far  more  than  their  gratitude,  if  given, 
could  ever  have  aided,  and  some  of  the  results  were  in 
jurious  to  the  last  degree. 

"  The  New  Orleans  Custom  House,"  declared  Mr. 
Sumner,  in  open  senate,  "  has  a  story  much  worse. 
Here  presidential  pretension  is  mixed  with  unblushing 
corruption  in  which  the  collector,  a  brother-in-law,  is 
a  chief  actor." 

It  so  happened,  oddly  enough,  that  the  writer  was 
brought  into  official  and  personal  relations  with  this 
particular  brother-in-law.  Time  and  again  during  the 
year  1870-71  there  came  to  West  Point  from  New 
Orleans  boxes  for  Cadet  Fred,  which,  as  regulations 
required,  that  young  gentleman  had  to  open  in  presence 
of  the  "  officer  in  charge,"  and  some  forbidden  or  con 
traband  luxuries  not  infrequently  appeared  therein, 
and  had  to  be  thrown  out.  The  year  after  Fred's  gradu 
ation  this  occasional  "officer  in  charge"  found  himself 
in  New  Orleans  as  aide-de-camp  to  the  general  com 
manding  the  Department  of  the  Gulf.  Those  were 
lively  days  in  Louisiana.  Two  rival  legislatures  were 
in  session,  riots  were  frequent,  wars  and  rumors  of 
wars  kept  the  wires  hot  and  the  aide-de-camp  bearing 
messages  between  his  general  and  the  governor  and 
the  collector  in  question.  It  took  less  than  half  an  eye 
to  see  that  the  latter  was  but  a  catspaw,  a  bewildered 
tool,  in  the  hands  of  half  a  dozen  shrewd  and  designing 
men.  The  coup  d'etat  to  which  Mr.  Casey  lent  himself 
in  bidding  a  baker's  dozen  of  the  obstructive  but  legally- 
chosen  legislature  to  dinner  aboard  the  revenue  cutter, 
and  spiriting  the  entire  party  off  to  an  undesired  cruise 
in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  proved  a  "  boomerang  "  at  Wash 
ington.  These  legislators  were  imperatively  needed  for 
24  369 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

the  passage  of  certain  acts  opposed  by  the  "  Custom 
House  "  faction,  and  this  enforced  absence,  contrived 
by  the  aid  of  Mr.  Casey,  became  in  the  hands  of  the 
congressional  investigating  committee,  promptly  sent 
to  the  scene,  nothing  short  of  abduction  and  kidnapping. 
The  pitiable  exhibition  made  by  the  collector  in  his  ex 
amination  by  the  Hon.  Mr.  Spear — a  most  suggestive 
name — was  something  no  witness  to  the  scene  could 
soon  forget.  If  ever  man  had  cause  at  that  time  to 
echo  the  prayer,  "  Heaven  save  me  from  my  friends," 
it  was  President  Grant.  The  sorrows  of  his  two  ad 
ministrations,  the  scandals  of  the  "  Star  route  "  affair, 
the  thunderclap  that  came  to  the  War  Secretary  as  well 
as  to  the  President  in  the  sudden  charge  of  bribery  and 
corruption  (accepted  in  silence  because  that  genial  and 
debonair  official  proved  far  more  of  a  man  than  the 
original  Adam),  the  innumerable  aspersions  and 
calumnies — far  too  often  were  grounded  in  some  one 
of  the  friends  the  unsuspecting  President  had  favored. 
His  own  rectitude  and  fidelity  stood  unconquerable,  no 
matter  by  whom  assailed,  to  the  triumphant  yet  sor 
rowful  end. 

In  spite  of  all  the  alleged  mismanagement  the  nation 
throve,  the  country  prospered,  the  debt  was  greatly 
lessened,  the  people  reasoned  for  themselves,  and  though 
many  fell  away  from  their  allegiance,  more  stood  firmly 
by  the  soldier-leader  of  their  original  choice.  The 
responsibilities  of  the  office,  as  he  said,  he  had  felt,  yet 
never  feared.  The  statesmanship  which  fathered  the 
treaty  of  Washington,  the  settlement  in  favor  of  the 
United  States  of  the  Alabama  claims,  and  the  veto 
against  such  numbers,  even  of  his  own  party,  of  the 
inflation  act,  will  compare  favorably  with  that  which  is 
ascribed  to  even  the  most  gifted  of  our  Presidents — 
something  which  Grant  never  thought  himself  to  be. 
He  found  the  country  in  turmoil  when  he  took  the  reins ; 

37o 


STORM  AND  STRESS 

he  left  it  as  he  hoped,  and  in  his  inaugural  he  had 
prayed,  almost  at  peace. 

But  though  that  second  term  had  come  to  him  as 
a  vindication  of  the  first,  it  closed  in  such  a  cloud  of 
calumny  that  he  was  glad  to  leave  it;  and  Julia  Dent, 
loyal  to  his  wishes  when  once  announced,  stifling  her 
own  disappointment,  graciously  put  everything  about 
the  White  House  in  order  for  her  successor- to-be,  pre 
pared  for  the  newcomers  a  welcome  luncheon  on  their 
arrival  from  the  ceremony  of  inauguration,  tactfully 
took  the  arm  of  Mr.  Hayes  and  led  him  to  what  was  to 
become  his  own  table,  and  then,  when  the  bright  and 
cheery  repast  was  ended,  as  tactfully  took  her  leave, 
the  arm  of  her  own  soldier-husband,  and  gracefully 
retired  from  the  scene  of  her  social  triumphs. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 
FOREIGN  TRAVEL  AND   FINAL  RETURN 

YET  in  spite  of  those  social  successes  there  had  been 
family  anxieties  and  cares.  The  hearts  of  both  father 
and  mother  were  bound  up  in  their  winsome  daughter. 
The  child  had  been  the  object  of  no  little  attention  every 
where;  and  now,  even  before  she  had  donned  the  long 
garb  of  young  ladyhood,  attentions  of  more  pressing 
nature  were  being  lavished  upon  her.  Several  rivals 
were  in  the  field.  Mrs.  Grant  took  alarm.  The  Bories 
were  going  to  England,  and  she  besought  them  to  take 
Nellie  with  them  and  away  from  these  young  gallants 
who  sought  to  woo  and  win  her. 

It  was  a  case  of  fleeing  from  one  evil  to  others  we 
know  not  of.  Several  months  were  they  gone  and,  on 
the  homeward  voyage,  Princess  'Nellie  met  a  young 
Englishman  of  excellent  family,  who  proceeded  to  de 
vote  himself.  The  voyage  was  rough,  the  Bories  were 
poor  sailors  and  kept  below.  Proximity  did  the  rest. 
The  joyous  welcome  to  home  and  White  House 
took  on  a  tinge  of  anxiety  when  Mr.  Algernon  Sartoris 
presently  called,  and  it  became  obvious  in  spite  of  all 
precautions  that  love  had  laughed  at  locksmiths,  that 
Nellie's  heart  was  lost  to  this  handsome  young  Briton. 
What  it  meant  to  the  President  no  man  was  ever  told. 
From  the  first,  however,  it  is  known  that  he  looked  upon 
the  suit  with  apprehension  if  not  aversion.  Yet  at 
the  time  no  valid  objection  could  be  urged.  Sorely 
against  his  will,  the  mother  and  daughter  persuaded 
him  to  hear  Mr.  Sartoris.  The  young  man  was  bidden 
to  dinner  and  later  invited  to  the  billiard  room,  was 
tendered  a  cigar,  and  then  the  two  were  left  alone, 
Grant  in  grim  silence  sitting  and  studying  the  abashed 

372 


FOREIGN  TRAVEL  AND  FINAL  RETURN 

and  nervous  suitor.  There  was,  as  Badeau  tells  it,  only 
one  way  out  of  it:  "Mr.  President,  I  want  to  marry 
your  daughter,"  said  Sartoris,  and  so  the  ice  was  broken. 

It  was  a  beautiful  wedding,  say  all  the  chroniclers, 
but  men  nearest  the  President  could  never  forget  the 
foreboding  and  sorrow  in  his  face.  From  the  very 
first  he  seemed  to  dread,  even  to  foresee  the  outcome. 
But  his  beloved  daughter  and  her  mother  had  made 
up  their  minds  and  he  could  name  no  reason  for  re 
fusal.  Welcomed  and  beloved  by  all  in  her  young  hus 
band's  home,  almost  as  in  her  own  where  she  was 
idolized,  our  Princess  had  that  at  least  to  sustain  and 
cheer  her  when,  before  very  long,  convinced  that  her 
father's  fears  had  been  too  well  founded. 

Once  away  from  the  White  House,  spending  a 
month  or  more  as  the  guests  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fish, 
the  Grants  found  themselves  again  the  object  of  almost 
universal  adulation.  The  wave  of  popular  sentiment 
returned  in  full  volume.  The  few  mistakes,  the  many 
calumnies,  of  the  eight  years'  reign  were  forgotten. 
Once  again  Grant  was  the  great  soldier  of  the  nation, 
their  hero,  their  foremost  citizen,  and  he  who  had  been 
so  saddened  by  the  manifold  attacks  was  amazed  to  find 
the  very  papers  that  had  assailed  him  as  President,  now 
lauding  him  as  the  typical  American.  He  was  going 
abroad.  He  was  about  to  spend  two  or  three  years  in 
travel  and  observation,  and  all  the  United  States  seemed 
bent  on  saying  to  Christendom  and  the  far  Orient, 
'This  is  a  man,  our  most  honored  son  and  soldier; 
bid  him  welcome  befitting  his  soldiership,  his  services, 
and  his  exalted  station — the  foremost  republican  of  the 
foremost  republic,"  and  practically  the  world  obeyed. 

The  departure  from  Philadelphia  was  an  ovation 
the  like  of  which  even  Grant  never  before  had  ex 
perienced,  the  voyage  a  joy  to  him.  The  landing  in 
England,  the  public  receptions  in  Liverpool,  Man 
chester,  Sheffield  and  so  on,  the  deputations  and  ad- 

373 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

dresses  of  the  British  workingmen,  all  proved  a  revela 
tion.  It  dawned  upon  him  of  a  sudden  that  to  an  ex 
tent  never  before  accorded  an  American  he  was  being 
received  with  honors  and  ceremonies  approximating 
those  prescribed  for  royalty. 

Badeau,  who  for  long  years  had  been  his  close  at 
tendant  at  home,  was  there  to  meet  and  escort  him. 
Badeau  was  then  consul-general  and  thoroughly  con 
versant  with  the  ceremonial  etiquette  which  hedges  every 
approach  to  the  throne.  Badeau  looked  to  see  his  shy 
and  simple-mannered  general  of  the  sixties  a  trifle 
abashed  and  nervous,  and  was  delighted  to  find  him 
placid  and  self-poised.  Badeau  wondered  what  might 
be  the  outcome  when  the  mayor  and  corporation  at  the 
great  banquet  at  the  Guild  Hall  should  toast  the  guest 
of  honor,  and  Badeau  could  hardly  believe  his  ears 
when  the  speechless  soldier  of  yore  calmly  arose,  faced 
that  brilliant  assemblage  and  spoke  freely,  fluently  and 
well.  From  that  time  forth  our  former  President  had 
found  himself,  as  it  were,  and  the  faculty  of  terse  and 
even  felicitous  expression  of  his  views,  no  matter  how 
public  the  occasion  or  how  vast  his  audience.  Badeau 
felt  less  concern,  but  some  curiosity,  as  to  the  out 
come  of  the  ceremonial  visit  to  the  Queen  at  Windsor. 
General  Grant  was  not  the  first  of  the  family  to  be 
received.  Her  Majesty  had  been  graciously  pleased  to 
welcome  winsome  Nellie  "  and  the  lady  accompanying 
her  "  to  Buckingham  Palace,  and  now  that  the  General 
had  been  the  honored  guest  of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  of 
Lord  Beaconsfield  and  others,  and  Queen  Victoria  had 
finally  returned  from  the  Highlands  to  Windsor,  a  visit 
was  arranged  for  General  and  Mrs.  Grant. 

It  has  all  been  told  inimitably  in  Badeau's  Memoirs, 
and  variously  described  in  the  press.  The  customs  of 
royalty  and  those  of  republics  are  so  much  at  variance 
that  it  is  difficult  for  the  American  mind  to  take  a  toler 
ant  view  of  the  Old  World  etiquette  involved  in  this 

374 


FOREIGN  TRAVEL  AND  FINAL  RETURN 

and  certain  other  functions  in  honor  of  our  foremost 
citizen.  Yet,  during  the  presidency  of  Washington, 
of  Buchanan,  of  Grant  and  certain  of  Grant's  succes 
sors,  questions  of  precedence  and  ceremonial  have  come 
up  in  which  our  American  sovereigns  have  been  quite 
as  tenacious  as  ever  were  court  chamberlain  or  im 
perial  master  of  ceremonies  abroad.  General  Grant, 
who  at  first  scoffed  at  White  House  formalities,  white 
ties  and  "  swallow-tails,"  became  speedily  a  stickler  for 
exact  and  punctilious  arrangement  of  guests  at  every 
dinner  or  reception.  President  Grant  declined  to  call 
upon  Prince  Arthur  of  Connaught — third  son  of  Vic 
toria  of  England — or  to  return  the  call  of  the  Grand 
Duke  Alexis,  son  of  the  Czar  of  all  the  Russias.  Such 
a  call,  he  reasoned,  would  be  a  recognition  of  royalty 
which  the  head  of  a  democratic  nation  should  avoid, 
and  so  when  in  turn  he  visited  foreign  territory,  although 
all  England  arose  to  receive  him,  and  the  band  played 
"  Hail  Columbia  "  at  his  approach,  the  Duke  of  Con- 
naught  would  not  come  up  from  Aldershot  to  call  upon 
Grant,  and  when  Fred,  the  son  of  our  President,  ap 
peared  in  the  suite  of  General  Sherman,  and  was  pre 
sented  to  the  Czar,  that  monarch,  remembering  the 
Washington  incident  which  had  given  him  such  annoy, 
stiffly  acknowledged  the  lieutenant's  confidently  good- 
natured  salutation  with,  "  I  hope  you  are  well,  sir,"  and 
turned  back  to  talk  with  Sherman,  thereby  reversing 
the  proceedings  of  the  head  of  the  Ottoman  empire, 
who  descended  from  his  throne,  took  Fred  by  the  hand, 
led  him  up  to  a  seat  alongside,  and  left  General  Sherman 
to  his  ministers. 

There  is  something  really  comical  about  the  episode 
at  Windsor.  Baby  Jesse,  the  family  pet  and  prodigy, 
by  that  time  a  genuine  American  youth  of  nineteen, 
had  accompanied  his  father  and  mother  to  Windsor, 
but  when  he  found  that  only  General  and  Mrs.  Grant 
were  to  sit  with  Her  Majesty  at  dinner — that  General 

375 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Badeau  and  himself  were  to  be  assigned  to  a  table 
with  the  lords  and  ladies  of  "  the  Household,"  our  third 
son  was  up  in  arms  at  once,  refused  to  sit  with  "  the 
servants,"  and  declared  he  would  go  back  to  London 
instanter  if  the  plan  were  not  changed.  The  fact  that 
even  the  premier  of  England,  even  ambassadors  and 
visiting  members  of  the  government  always  dined  with 
"  the  Household  "  unless  specially  bidden  to  sit  with 
the  Queen — the  fact  that  our  American  minister  pleni 
potentiary  and  his  distinguished  wife  were  present  and 
were  not  to  sit  with  Her  Majesty,  had  no  mollifying 
effect  upon  our  representative  of  Young  America.  Jesse 
stood  squarely  upon  his  rights  as  having  been  invited  by 
the  Queen  to  Windsor. 

Here  as  elsewhere,  what  his  wife  or  children  de 
manded,  had  its  weight  with  Grant.  Badeau  was  sent 
to  the  Master  of  the  Royal  Household,  and  that  courte 
ous  gentleman  waited  at  once  upon  the  Queen.  Her 
Majesty,  doubtless  much  diverted,  heard  of  the  young 
gentleman's  ultimatum,  and  was  pleased  to  order  that 
he  be  assigned  to  her  table,  and  then  amused  the  Gen 
eral,  who  was  in  no  wise  fluttered  by  the  incident  or  by 
the  royal  presence,  by  a  most  gracious  manner.  "  She 
seemed  to  be  trying  to  put  me  at  my  ease,"  he  laughed 
to  Badeau,  later. 

Perhaps  the  most  amusing  incident  of  the  memor 
able  evening,  however,  was  when  Her  Majesty,  strik 
ing  a  congenial  topic,  spoke  to  Mrs.  Grant  of  the  mani 
fold  cares  which  beset  her  as  sovereign  of  the  British 
Empire,  and  was  promptly  met  with,  "  Oh,  yes,  I  can 
imagine  them;  I,  too,  have  been  the  wife  of  a.  great 
ruler."  It  is  remembered  that  Mrs.  Grant  was  a  most 
difficult  person  to  patronize  in  the  least  at  Washington, 
and  it  is  well  within  the  bounds  of  reason  to  believe  that 
Julia  Dent  considered  the  wife  of  Ulysses  Grant,  lately 
chief  magistrate  of  the  American  nation,  as  quite  the 
social  equal  of  the  Sovereign  Queen  of  Great  Britain 

376 


FOREIGN  TRAVEL  AND  FINAL  RETURN 

and  Ireland;  moreover,  that  she  rather  rejoiced  in  an 
opportunity  of  expressing  her  views  to  that  effect. 

All  the  same,  though  other  former  presidents  had 
visited  England,  none  had  been  received  with  the  hon 
ors  and  distinction  accorded  General  Grant.  Once  only 
was  there  a  slight,  the  offender  being  the  Earl  of  Dudley, 
a  peer  who  lacked  the  breeding  of  our  tanner's  son,  and 
who  could  never  have  won  from  the  lips  of  England's 
great  divine  and  orator  the  tribute  which  publicly  he 
paid  to  Grant. 

In  Belgium,  however,  the  king  and  queen  received 
General  and  Mrs.  Grant  in  every  sense  as  equals — the 
king  delighting  our  General  by  personally  leading  Mrs. 
Grant  to  dinner.  In  London  our  General  and  gentle 
man  gravely  excused  himself  from  taking  his  place  with 
royalty  in  the  court  quadrille,  to  which  he,  but  not  Mrs. 
Grant,  had  been  invited.  In  Belgium,  in  France,  he 
could  find  no  possible  flaw  in  the  honors  accorded  the 
"  first  lady  "  of  his  land  and  the  only  one  of  his  heart. 
There  the  reception  given  them  both  was  perfect  in 
every  detail,  and  Grant's  happiness  in  her  happiness  was 
complete. 

The  expenses  of  the  first  administration  had  ex 
ceeded  the  presidential  pay.  Congress  raised  the  salary 
in  time  for  the  second  term,  so  that  Grant  had  some 
thousands  of  dollars  to  provide  for  a  long  and  pro 
tracted  tour  abroad.  Then  Ulysses,  Jr.,  had  married 
into  millionaire  circles  in  the  far  West,  and  had  invested 
a  few  other  thousands  for  his  father.  Those  were  the 
"  bonanza  "  days,  and  Ulysses,  Jr.,  was  enabled  to  hand 
over  to  his  father  something  like  fifty  thousand  dollars 
in  profit.  Grant  felt  rich,  free  from  care,  full  of  content 
and  health,  and  all  through  those  delightful  days  in 
Switzerland  and  Italy  he  seemed  renewing  his  youth. 
He  could  not,  however,  enjoy  the  glorious  scenery,  or 
endure  the  incessant  music,  except  at  the  side  of  his 
wife.  If  any  one  else,  even  temporarily,  took  the  seat 

377 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

by  Mrs.  Grant  in  car  or  carriage  the  ride  was  spoiled 
for  him,  and  she,  grandmother  though  she  was,  re 
joiced  in  her  dominion  and  openly  and  triumphantly 
coquetted  with  him.  It  was  a  far  cry  from  the  palaces 
of  Windsor  and  of  Buckingham,  from  the  Elysee  and 
the  honors  of  a  queen,  to  the  shaded  porch  of  White 
Haven  and  the  arching  foliage  of  the  old  Gravois  road, 
but  the  woman's  heart  within  her  beat  in  the  fulness 
of  pride  and  joy  that  the  "  little  lieutenant  in  the  big 
epaulets  "  who  had  become  the  greatest  soldier  of  his 
day,  and  the  acclaimed  ruler  of  sixty  millions  of  people, 
was  to  the  very  zenith  of  his  fame  and  to  the  end  of  the 
life  accorded  him  her  constant  lover  and  devoted  ad 
mirer. 

Two  years  they  journeyed  leisurely  through  Europe 
and  the  Orient,  Grant  especially  impressed  with  what  he 
saw  in  China  and  Japan.  Then  homeward  across  the 
blue  Pacific  they  came,  and  California  rose  at  their 
approach  and  flocked  to  the  Golden  Gate  to  give  them 
welcome  such  as  even  California  never  yet  had  given 
mortal  man.  It  was  in  the  fall  of  1879,  and  it  was  a 
year  before  the  presidential  campaign. 

The  close  election  in  November,  '76,  and  the  sub 
sequent  administration  of  President  Hayes  had  com 
bined  to  make  the  Republican  party  doubtful  of  the 
issue  in  1880.  Its  old-time  leaders  believed  there  was 
just  one  man  capable  of  re-arousing  the  desired  senti 
ment,  and  that  was  Grant.  If  only  they  could  keep  him 
abroad  until  the  psychological  moment — hold  him  away 
from  our  shores  until  just  before  the  convention — the 
blaze  of  enthusiasm  which  would  surely  kindle  at  his 
coming  would  sweep  the  entire  country  and  consume 
all  possible  opposition.  It  is  probable  that,  better  man 
aged,  the  scheme  would  have  succeeded.  It  is  hazarded 
that  had  they  sent  some  gifted  emissary  to  lay  the  plan 
before  Mrs.  Grant  and  induce  her  to  persuade  him  that 
there  were  still  people  and  places  that  she  might  wish 

378 


FOREIGN  TRAVEL  AND  FINAL  RETURN 

to  see  (for  he  indeed  would  gladly  have  visited  Aus 
tralia),  he  surely  would  have  yielded  to  her  wishes. 
Thus  the  managers  could  have  tided  over  that  fateful 
winter  and  spring  of  1879-80,  and  then,  at  the  last 
moment,  along  in  May,  permitted  him  to  reach  our 
western  shores,  to  receive  his  tumultuous  and  tremendous 
ovation,  and,  proclaiming  him  at  Chicago  as  the  one 
obvious  and  logical  leader  of  the  whole  people,  declare 
him  the  candidate  of  the  Republican  party  for  re 
election  to  the  presidency  of  the  United  States. 

It  might  not  have  gone  by  acclamation  as  it  did  in 
Cincinnati  in  '68,  but  the  chances  are  that  it  would  have 
prevailed,  and  that,  rather  than  humiliate  their  great 
leader,  even  many  who  opposed  on  principle  a  third 
term  would  have  cast  their  vote  and  elected  him. 

But,  Grant  returned  too  soon.  The  enthusiasm  and 
excitement  died  away.  The  scheme  for  his  renomina- 
tion  became  public,  and  instantly  its  opponents  set  to 
work  against  it.  Ardently  as  Julia  Dent  desired  to 
reign  again  in  Washington ;  undoubtedly  as  Grant  him' 
self  would  now  have  been  glad  to  return  to  office,  re 
freshed  by  years  of  rest  and  reinforced  by  the  oppor 
tunities  of  seeing  for  himself  the  rulers  and  the  nations 
of  the  known  world ;  unquestionably  as  he  was  far  bet 
ter  fitted  for  the  presidency  than  ever  he  had  been  be 
fore,  even  devoted  personal  friends  disapproved  the 
project,  and — it  was  not  to  be.  Far  too  many  sturdy 
citizens  held  to  the  republican  doctrine  that  eight  years 
in  that  high  office  should  be  the  uttermost  limit  accorded 
any  one  man,  no  matter  what  his  character  and  qualifica 
tions,  no  matter  what  the  eminence  of  his  past.  Grant, 
with  his  old  Guard,  the  immortal  three  hundred  and 
seven  "  Stalwarts,"  came  nearer  a  third  term  than  any 
other  aspirant  ever  has  or  probably  ever  will.  He  in 
whose  sight  a  thousand  years  are  but  as  yesterday  had 
reserved  him  for  one  more  supreme  test  and  sublime 
humiliation  before  according  the  final  honors  which 

379 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

overshadowed   even   those   lavished   on   our  martyred 
Lincoln. 

They  visited  the  Galena  home  a  little  while,  but 
they  had  outgrown  it.  They  spent  some  weeks  in 
Chicago  with  Fred,  now  aide-de-camp  to  Sheridan,  and 
with  Fred's  own  little  household.  It  would  be  untrue  to 
say  that  Grant  cared  little  for  his  defeat.  Like  any 
strong  man  he  hated  to  be  beaten  and  he  felt  that  he 
was  far  better  fitted  for  the  office  than  ever  he  had 
been.  Defeated,  however,  he  was,  and  might  now  with 
entire  propriety  have  sought  retirement.  He  might, 
as  others  less  injured  have  done,  "  sulked  in  his  tent," 
but  the  party  leaders  who  had  compassed  his  defeat 
now  had  to  beg  of  him  and  of  Roscoe  Conkling  that 
they  should  help  elect  the  successful  candidate  of  the 
convention,  or  see  the  country  fall  into  the  hands  of 
the  opposing  party.  And  he  whom  they  had  rejected 
turned  to  and  worked  for  their  success. 

That  luckless  campaign,  however,  had  embittered 
Grant  against  men  high  in  public  station,  even  one  or 
two  who  had  been  his  devoted  friends — even  Elihu 
Washburne.  Unknown  even  to  Mrs  Grant,  and  at 
the  urgings  of  John  Russell  Young,  who  had  been  his 
companion  in  the  journey  ings  abroad,  and  who  knew 
politics  at  home,  Grant  had  written  a  letter  warranting 
the  withdrawal  of  his  name  as  candidate,  but  that  letter 
somehow  was  seen  by  only  a  chosen  few,  who  pledged 
each  other,  probably,  to  secrecy. 

Incensed  with  the  men  he  thought  had  belittled  him 
in  permitting  his  name  to  be  submitted  when  it  was 
plain  that  the  opposition  was  far  too  powerful,  angered 
at  the  new  president  who,  he  believed,  had  slighted  his 
wishes,  and  generally  disheartened  with  politics  for  all 
time,  Grant  sojourned  awhile  in  Mexico,  spent  summers 
at  Long  Branch,  enjoyed  the  society  -of  certain  old 
friends  and  chums,  and  the  growing  belief  that  his 
investments  with  his  banker-son  were  destined  to  make 
him  a  millionaire. 

380 


/^-^ 


From  the  collection  of  I-.  II.  Meserve 

GRANT  THE  BANKER,  1883 


FOREIGN  TRAVEL  AND  FINAL  RETURN 

Then  President  Garfield  was  shot,  languished  and 
died — a  victim  to  our  national  laxity  which  thus  far  has 
cost  us  the  lives  of  three  of  the  best  and  kindliest  of 
our  chief  magistrates  and  may  yet  cost  us  more — and 
Grant,  who  had  mutely  followed  the  pall  of  Lincoln, 
whom  he  honored  and  revered,  of  statesmen  like  Chase 
and  Sumner,  with  whom  he  had  seriously  differed,  ap 
peared  in  the  train  of  him  he  had  helped  to  elect  and 
later  learned  to  distrust.  Then  came  the  administra 
tion  of  Mr.  Arthur,  with  whom  at  first  the  former  sol 
dier-president  seemed  to  have  such  influence  that  swarms 
of  office-seekers  implored  his  aid.  Then  that  influence 
also  waned.  Grant  was  sensitive  to  a  degree  absolutely 
incompatible  with  political  life  or  association.  He 
would  have  lived  and  died  a  happier  man  had  he,  like 
Sherman,  refused  every  offer  that  led  to  the  presidential 
chair. 

He  had  returned  from  Europe  in  '79,  worth  pre 
sumably,  says  Badeau,  one  hundred  thousand  dollars, 
and  the  owner  of  two  or  three  handsome  homes.  On 
the  income  of  this  sum  he  and  his  beloved  wife  could 
live  in  comfort  in  some  small  city  or  the  country,  but 
they  longed  to  live  as  they  had  been  living,  "  in  the  lime 
light  "  and  in  town.  It  was  then  that  Ulysses,  Jr.,  the 
putative  financier  of  the  family,  and  whose  investments 
had  certainly  doubled  the  father's  little  nestegg  in  the 
past,  tendered  the  general  a  partnership  in  the  firm  of 
Grant  &  Ward,  which  was  doing,  as  all  could  see,  a 
wonderful  business  in  Wall  Street.  The  fact  that  the 
President  had  allied  himself  with  the  house  would  un 
doubtedly  add  to  its  prestige  and  prominence.  The 
name  was  worth  all  it  might  earn — and  more. 

Then  followed  four  years  of  prosperous  ease,  of  a 
bank  account  that  placed  our  late  President  "  beyond 
the  dreams  of  avarice  "  and  blinded  him  as  to  the 
methods  of  the  management.  Then  came  the  deluge. 
Then  followed  desolation. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 
THE  FINAL  BLOW 

LONG  months  before  the  melancholy  failure  of  that 
ill-omened  bank,  the  General  had  told  Badeau  of  the 
fabulous  profits  the  firm  was  realizing,  and  Badeau  went 
to  their  old  comrade  of  the  war  and  White  House  days — 
to  Horace  Porter — and  asked  that  reticent  but  ex 
perienced  soldier-citizen  his  opinion,  and  Porter  sol 
emnly  shook  his  head.  Such  profits,  he  said,  were 
impossible  in  a  business  honestly  conducted.  But  Grant 
saw  on  every  side  men  by  the  dozen  who  had  started 
with  less  than  his  modest  capital  and  had  gathered 
fortunes  in  Wall  Street.  He  was  so  confident  in  the 
sagacity  and  judgment  of  Ulysses,  Jr.,  that  he  invested 
his.  every  dollar  with  the  firm  and  reinvested  every 
penny  of  the  profits  which  he  did  not  lavish  on  his  loved 
ones  or  on  his  followers  and  friends.  Like  Thackeray's 
most  lovable  hero,  Colonel  Newcome,  he  thought  to 
share  his  good  fortune  with  many  of  his  kith  and  kin 
and  urged  their  sending  their  savings  to  be  invested  for 
them  by  brilliant  young  "  Buck "  and  his  sagacious 
partner — that  wonderful  wizard  in  finance,  Mr.  Ward. 
Aside  from  the  chagrin  of  seeing  some  of  his  recom 
mendations  disregarded,  and  certain  of  his  opponents 
rewarded  first  by  Mr.  Garfield  and  later  by  Mr.  Arthur, 
General  Grant  was  living  in  those  years  a  life  of  ease, 
luxury  and  freedom  from  care  such  as  never  before 
he  had  enjoyed.  Julia  Dent  was  as  ever  first  and  fore 
most  in  his  world,  but  the  children  were  the  source  of 
pride  and  joy  unspeakable.  Devoted,  dutiful  and  loyal 
they  unquestionably  were,  but  Grant  believed  of  his 
first  born  that  he  was  destined  to  become  renowned  as 
a  general,  and  of  "  Buck  "  and  Jesse  that  they  were 

382 


THE  FINAL  BLOW 

born  financiers  and  business  men.  As  for  Princess 
Nellie,  the  father's  love  and  yearning  for  that  one 
daughter  of  his  house  and  name  was  beyond  all  measure. 
•No  man  ever  loved  home,  wife  and  children  more 
tenderly,  more  absorbingly. 

Although  widely  scattered  at  the  time,  this  heart- 
united  household  had  been  anticipating  a  blithe  and 
merry  Christmas  at  the  close  of  the  year  1883.  When 
alighting  from  his  carriage  just  before  midnight,  with 
the  welcoming  chimes  pealing  on  the  frosty  air,  the 
General's  foot  slipped  on  the  icy  pavement,  he  fell 
heavily,  a  muscle  snapped  in  the  thigh,  possibly  one  of 
those  injured  twenty  years  earlier,  the  day  of  that  fate 
ful  stumble  at  Carrollton,  and  he  was  carried  into  the 
house,  never  thereafter  to  leave  it  in  health  or  strength. 

Crutches  again,  and  later  a  cane,  long  were  neces 
sary.  In  March  they  took  him  to  Fortress  Monroe  so 
that  he  could  hobble  about  in  the  soft  air  and  sunshine. 
In  April  he  was  back  again  in  Gotham,  able  to  drive  his 
favorite  team,  but  not  to  walk.  On  Sunday,  the  4th  of 
May,  the  wizard  partner,  Ward,  came  into  their  home 
and  quite  casually  announced  that  the  Marine  Bank 
of  New  York,  in  which  Grant  &  Ward  had  large  de 
posits,  needed  perhaps  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
dollars  to  tide  them  over  a  temporary  difficulty.  If 
General  Grant  could  borrow  that  much  over  Monday, 
Grant  &  Ward  would  not  have  to  lose  a  cent;  other 
wise  they  stood  to  lose  perhaps  fifty  or  sixty  thousand. 
Of  course  the  lender  would  lose  nothing,  said  Ward, 
as  there  was  a  million,  at  least,  of  securities  in  the 
vaults. 

The  world  knows  the  rest — how  unsuspiciously  our 
General  called  on  his  friend  and  fellow  horseman,  Mr. 
William  H.  Vanderbilt,  said  that  he  needed  one  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  for  a  day  or  so,  and  came  away  with 
a  cheque  for  that  amount.  For  no  other  man  prob 
ably  would  Mr.  Vanderbilt  have  parted  unsecured  with 

383 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

such  a  sum.  The  cheque  was  promptly  endorsed  and 
turned  over  to  Mr.  Ward,  who  took  it  unconcernedly 
and  then  his  leave. 

Tuesday  morning,  May  6th,  believing  himself  a 
millionaire  and  the  brief  indebtedness  to  Vanderbilt 
already  cancelled,  Grant  alighted  at  the  Wall  Street  office 
to  find  an  ominous  gathering.  "  Father,  you  had  better 
go  home — the  bank  has  failed,"  said  Ulysses,  Jr.,  with 
misery  in  his  eyes,  but  Grant  stayed  to  investigate. 
Badeau,  the  faithful,  hastening  in  at  noon,  found  his 
old  chief  seated  in  the  rear  office,  calm  in  the  midst  of 
stress  and  storm.  "  We  are  all  ruined  here,"  he  simply 
said.  Ward  had  vanished,  the  key  of  the  vaults  with 
him,  and  when  they  were  finally  opened,  the  boasted 
"  securities  "  were  found  to  be  but  shadows.  The  ruin 
was  complete. 

Everything  they  had — all  the  beautiful  gifts,  tro 
phies,  souvenirs,  even  the  little  houses  owned  by  Mrs. 
Grant  in  Washington,  and  the  repurchased  Dent  prop 
erty  about  St.  Louis,  had  to  be  sold.  Grant  insisted, 
though  it  left  them,  for  the  time  at  least,  absolutely 
penniless.  It  had  dragged  down  others  with  them;  it 
involved  his  honored  name  in  a  whirlpool  of  censure, 
criticism  and  calumny  that  well-nigh  crushed  him. 
Fallen  from  such  supremely  high  estate,  the  insults  and 
indignities  that  beset  him  now  far  outweighed  the 
slights  and  sneers  that  had  been  his  portion  in  the  days 
of  his  earlier  humiliation.  Over  the  depths  of  the 
misery  that  had  come  to  him  in  his  old  and  recently 
honored  age  let  us  draw  the  curtain.  No  man  on  earth 
could  know  the  suffering  it  cost  him.  Only  one  woman 
could  faintly  see.  Helping  hands  there  were  outstretched 
to  him  instanter,  and  money  to  meet  the  immediate  need. 
Then,  as  the  storm  subsided  and  the  extent  of  Ward's 
villainy  and  Grant's  innocence  became  known,  new 
measures  were  taken  to  provide  against  absolute  want. 
A  trust  fund  had  already  been  raised.  A  measure  was 

384 


THE  FINAL  BLOW 

speedily  set  on  foot  to  restore  to  Grant  the  rank  and 
pay  which  he  had  surrendered  on  assuming  the  presi 
dency,  and  a  modest  competence  would  thus  be  insured 
him  and  those  he  loved.  There  was  a  home  in  which  to 
live.  They  could  even  spend  the  summers  at  the  sea 
shore.  There  were  offers  of  congenial  occupation  that 
might  have  proved  mildly  lucrative.  There  was 
measurable  return  to  hope  and  possible  health.  There 
had  never  been  complaint  or  repining.  To  all  about  him 
he  had  been  gentleness,  consideration,  kindliness  itself. 
There  was  just  one  cause  of  new,  yet  slight  anxiety : 

All  through  that  summer  of  '84,  while  at  Long 
Branch,  his  throat  had  been  giving  him  pain,  and  a 
Philadelphia  physician,  examining  it  for  the  first  time 
late  in  September,  advised,  even  urged,  says  Badeau,  his 
consulting  a  specialist  on  returning  to  town.  For  a 
time  he  took  no  heed.  He  was  writing  now,  long  hours 
each  day,  but  at  last  he  called,  as  further  urged  by  his 
own  physician,  upon  that  distinguished  expert,  Dr.  J.  H. 
Douglas,  and  that  evening  calmly  admitted  that  the 
trouble  in  the  throat  was  cancerous  in  tendency.  And 
that  this  was  true,  the  fact  that  he  suddenly  dropped 
the  luxury  of  all  the  days  that  had  followed  Donelson — 
his  cigar — and  the  sufferings  that  followed  in  November 
and  December  proved  beyond  possibility  of  doubt. 

By  mid-winter  the  torture  had  become  incessant,  the 
weakness  so  alarming  that  daily  visits  to  his  physician 
were  abandoned,  and  he  was  now  spending  long  hours 
of  pain  and  distress,  propped  in  a  reclining  chair.  Fred, 
with  his  wife  and  children,  had  come  to  help  and  cheer 
him.  Friends  and  old  comrades  were  constant  in  their 
calls.  The  success  of  the  few  articles  written  for  the 
Century  had  been  so  marked  that  the  publishers  urgently 
asked  for  more.  For  a  time  his  suffering  and  weakness 
were  such  that  he  shrank  from  the  effort,  but  when 
the  offers  (in  which  our  great  author  and  humorist 
"  Mark  Twain "  had  been  a  prominent  adviser) 
25  385 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

took  definite  shape,  and  he  was  induced  to  prepare  his 
own  Memoirs  for  publication,  it  seemed  as  though  new 
life  and  purpose  were  vouchsafed  him,  for  in  spite  of 
that  suffering  and  weakness  he  set  sturdily  to  work, 
dictating  so  long  as  the  condition  of  his  throat  would 
permit,  reading  over  the  copied  pages,  comparing 
records,  reports  and  orders,  and  finding  comfort  un 
speakable  in  his  task  and  in  the  hope  that  the  resultant 
book  would  find  such  a  sale  as  to  place  his  loved  ones 
once  again  in  ease  and  affluence. 

Twice  or  thrice  it  seemed  as  though  he  might  not 
be  spared  to  finish  it.  Once  in  April  they  believed  him 
going.  Once,  in  the  dead  of  night  again,  violent  hemor 
rhage  ensued,  and  the  physician  sleeping  in  the  adjoin 
ing  room  and  suddenly  aroused,  bent  every  effort  to 
check  the  flow,  yet  thought  his  efforts  vain.  Death 
seemed  so  imminent  that  April  night  that  even  Mrs. 
Grant,  who  had  never  lost  hope  or  courage,  now,  kneel 
ing  beside  him,  besought  his  blessing.  They  were  all 
gathered  about  him  by  that  time — even  sorrowing  Nellie 
from  her  distant  home  across  the  sea,  and  it  had  been 
sweet  to  see  the  joy  in  his  fading  eyes  as  they  watched 
and  followed  her.  And  then  he  rallied  as  he  had  at 
Shiloh,  and  firmly,  grimly  faced  the  destroyer  he  had 
dared  on  a  dozen  battlefields.  And  the  summer  came 
and  found  him  still  laboring  at  those  Memoirs,  still 
suffering  untold,  almost  unbearable,  pain,  fighting  on  to 
finish  the  work  in  hand  before  the  ever-increasing  force 
and  fury  of  the  destroyer  should  utterly  prevail. 

And  meanwhile  a  nation  stood  with  bated  breath 
and  watched  and  prayed.  Crowds  gathered  about  the 
house  and  importuned  the  physicians  for  tidings.  Con 
gress  had  passed  amid  scenes  of  emphatic  popular  ap 
proval  the  bill  restoring  him  again  to  the  generalship  of 
old — almost  the  last  act  signed  by  Mr.  Arthur  before 
leaving,  as  it  was  almost  the  first  commission  signed  by 
Mr.  Cleveland  after  entering,  the  White  House. 

386 


,  a  photograph 


THE  LAST  DAYS 
Grant  and  family  at  Mount  McGregor 


THE  FINAL  BLOW 

Then  presently,  for  quiet  and  for  better  air,  as  all 
remember,  they  bore  him  to  the  Drexel  cottage  at 
Mount  McGregor,  near  Saratoga  Springs,  and  here,  his 
voice  utterly  gone,  compelled  to  make  his  wishes  known 
by  signs,  compelled  to  complete  the  pages  of  his  Memoirs 
with  pad  and  pencil,  our  stricken  soldier  indomitably 
held  to  his  self-appointed  task,  once  more  "  fighting  it 
out  on  this  line  if  it  took  all  summer."  iNever  even 
at  Shiloh,  in  front  of  Vicksburg,  or  in  the  fire-flashing 
Wilderness  was  he  more  tenacious,  determined,  heroic, 
for  now  intense  suffering  accompanied  almost  every 
move  and  moment,  j  Physicians  were  constantly  at  hand  ; 
Fred,  the  devoted  'son,  ever  at  his  side.  Here  there 
came  to  see  him  and  to  sympathize  old  comrades — even 
old  enemies — of  the  war  days,  all  thought  of  rancor 
buried  now.  Here,  just  as  thirty  years  earlier  he  had 
hastened  to  offer  aid,  came  Buckner  (and  this  time 
unprotesting)  in  unconditional  surrender;  for  beneath 
the  shadow  of  that  hovering  wing  the  last  vestige  of 
sectional  pride  gave  way  to  fond  memories  of  the  old 
and  firm  friendship.  Here,  almost  as  the  twilight  deep 
ened  into  the  gloom  of  night  eternal,  they  bore  him  the 
tribute  of  honor  and  respect  from  men  whom  he  had 
vehemently  opposed — foeman-in-chief  to  the  Union, 
Jefferson  Davis,  and  soldier-candidate  and  political  foe, 
Winfield  S.  Hancock.  Here  they  read  him  letters,  tele 
grams,  editorials  from  every  corner  of  the  Union  he 
had  striven  to  weld  and  secure,  every  line  telling  of 
world-wide  sympathy,  honor  and  affection.  Here, 
almost  at  the  last,  he  pencilled  those  farewell  pages  of 
those  fruitful  volumes,  which,  whatever  his  earlier  de 
fects  in  style,  have  been  declared  classic  in  modern 
literature.  Here,  ere  the  light  went  out  forever,  he 
wrote  the  pathetic  missive,  his  final  words  of  love,  long 
ing  and  devotion  to  the  wife  whom  he  held  peerless 
among  women,  to  the  children  whom  he  loved  with  such 
infinite  tenderness,  and  for  whose  future  comfort,  even 

387 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

in  face  of  such  persistent  torment  and  impending  death, 
he  had  labored  to  the  very  last. 

And  then,  as  he  completed  the  final  paragraph — the 
story  of  his  soldier-life  and  services — and  with  falter 
ing  hand  signed  the  final  letter,  he  closed  his  wearied 
eyes  upon  the  group  that  hovered  ever  about  him,  eager 
to  garner  every  look  and  whisper,  and  so  the  long  fight 
ended,  even  as  it  had  begun,  almost  without  a  sigh. 
Apparently  without  consciousness  of  pain,  certainly 
without  struggle  or  suffering,  surrounded  by  that  de 
voted  household — wife,  sons  and  only  daughter — the 
greatest  of  our  warriors  passed  onward  into  the  valley 
of  shadows,  and  to  immortality. 

Thirty  years  have  passed  since  that  which  struck 
from  our  muster  rolls  the  name  of  our  first  and  fore 
most  general — thirty  years,  as  these  pages  are  given  to 
the  light,  since  that  summer  day  on  which,  with  the 
highest  honors  and  the  greatest  retinue  ever  accorded  to 
American  citizen  or  soldier,  the  flag-enshrouded  casket 
was  borne  almost  the  length  of  all  Manhattan;  Han 
cock,  the  superb  on  many  a  battlefield,  heading  the 
league-long  procession  of  soldiery,  the  world-garnered 
dignitaries  from  every  state  and  clime.  Amidst  the 
solemn  thunder  of  the  guns  of  the  warships  moored 
along  the  Hudson,  the  farewell  volleys  of  the  troops 
aligned  along  the  heights,  in  the  presence  of  the  Presi 
dent  and  cabinet,  the  supreme  court  and  the  diplomatic 
corps,  the  governors  of  nearly  every  commonwealth, 
eminent  soldiers,  sailors,  veterans  of  the  Civil  War,  the 
gray  mingling  with  the  blue,  and  all  engulfed  in  a  vast 
multitude  of  mourners,  the  final  prayers  were  said, 
the  last  benediction  spoken,  and  under  the  shadow  of  the 
beloved  flag  he  had  served  with  such  fidelity  and  to 
such  eminent  purpose,  they  laid  to  rest  the  honored 
soldier  whose  valiant  service  had  secured  to  them  and 
to  their  posterity  the  blessings  of  union,  progress  and 
tranquillity,  and  whose  crowning  message  to  the  nation 

388 


THE  FINAL  BLOW 

he  had  restored  was  the  simple  admonition,  "  Let  us 
have  peace." 

And  in  those  thirty  years  the  people  of  our  land 
have  had  abundant  time  to  study  and  to  reflect.  Each 
succeeding  year  adds  to  their  reverence  for  their  greatest 
friend,  leader  and  statesman,  Abraham  Lincoln.  Each 
succeeding  year  seems  to  increase  their  appreciation  of 
their  greatest  soldier,  Ulysses  Grant,  and  yet  it  some 
times  seems  as  though  in  the  magnitude  of  the  obstacles 
overcome,  the  immensity  of  the  military  problems 
solved,  the  supreme  soldiership  of  the  man  has  blinded 
us  for  the  time  to  other  virtues,  less  heroic,  perhaps, 
yet  not  less  marked  and  true,  virtues  as  son,  as  husband, 
father  and  friend,  not  often  equalled  in  other  men,  if 
ever  excelled. 

And  was  there  nothing  more? 

Of  Newcome,  his  modest  hero,  his  kindliest  gentle 
man,  Thackeray  says,  "  The  humblest  in  his  own  opinion, 
he  was  furious  if  any  one  took  a  liberty  with  him,"  yet 
our  Western  soldier  suffered  many  an  indignity,  furious 
only  when  one  he  loved  was  scorned  or  slighted.  New- 
come  could  blush  to  the  temples  at  reference  to  his 
deeds :  Grant  blushed  to  the  roots  of  his  hair  when, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  poor  woman  whose  little  children 
he  offered  to  see  safely  through  their  journey,  he  had 
to  mention  his  title  and  name.  Froissart's  Chronicles 
he  may  never  have  read,  but  in  all  their  pages  is  there 
finer  picture  of  soldier  courtesy  than  that  which  fol 
lowed  the  great  surrender,  that  which  Canon  Farrar 
proclaimed  as  "  faultless  in  delicacy  "  when  the  Vir 
ginia  Cavalier  found  his  match,  not  only  in  the  ranks 
of  war,  but  in  all  that  makes  the  courteous,  considerate, 
consummate  gentleman,  in  our  silent  soldier-citizen  from 
the  hills  of  western  Illinois. 

And  was  not  his  a  marvellous  career?  Cradled  in 
the  cottage,  he  spoke  for  years  from  the  seat  of  the 
mightiest.  Chosen  and  trained  for  his  country's  wars, 

389 


THE  TRUE  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

he  best  loved  the  arts  of  peace.  Schooled  as  a  regular, 
he  to  the  fullest  extent  and  from  the  very  first  believed 
in  the  volunteer.  Ignored  by  book  and  bureau  soldiers 
at  the  start  despite  the  fine  record  of  the  Mexican  cam 
paigns,  indebted  to  a  Western  governor  for  the  oppor 
tunity  refused  him  by  the  War  Department,  he  held  his 
modest  way,  uncomplaining,  asking  only  to  be  made  of 
use.  One  year  had  raised  him  from  the  twilight  of  a 
Western  town  to  the  triumph  of  Donelson ;  two  years 
made  him  the  victor  of  Vicksburg,  the  head  of  the 
armies  of  the  West ;  three  had  set  him  in  supreme  com 
mand,  deferred  to  even  by  those  who  late  as  '62  had 
sought  to  down  him ;  four  and  the  sword  of  the  chivalric 
Lee  was  his  to  do  with  as  he  would — the  rebellion 
crushed,  the  war  ended,  and  then,  with  our  martyred 
Lincoln  lying  in  the  grave  ever  watered  by  a  nation's 
tears,  small  wonder  was  it  that  twice  the  people  held 
Grant  long  years  at  their  head,  and  when  he  had  re 
turned  from  that  globe-circling  triumphal  progress,  in 
large  numbers  would  again  have  called  him  to  the  White 
House,  an  uncrowned  monarch,  the  chosen  of  sover 
eign  citizens.  Was  he  greater  then  than  in  the  chain 
of  ills  that  followed?  Tricked  by  those  he  trusted, 
himself  unskilled  in  guile,  ruined  financially  by  those 
he  had  been  taught  to  hold  infallible,  and  finally  con 
fronted  by  the  dread  conviction  that,  though  barely  be 
yond  the  prime  of  life,  his  days  were  numbered — was  he 
ever  amid  the  thunder  of  saluting  cannon  and  the  cheers 
of  countless  multitudes  so  great  as  when,  with  the  grim 
destroyer  clutching  at  his  throat,  he  fought  for  life 
that  through  those  matchless  Memoirs  he  might  earn 
the  means  to  wipe  out  every  possible  obligation  and 
provide  in  modest  comfort,  at  least,  for  those  he  loved 
and  must  so  soon  leave  to  mourn  him?  In  those  last 
heroic  days  at  Mt.  McGregor  he  stood  revealed  in 
his  silent  suffering,  the  ideal  of  devotion,  endurance 
and  determination,  until,  his  great  work  done,  his  toil 

390 


THE  FINAL  BLOW 

and  trials  ended,  his  sword  long  since  sheathed,  his  pen 
now  dropping  from  the  weaned,  nerveless  hand,  he 
could  turn  to  the  Peace  Ineffable  and  sink  to  rest — our 
greatest  soldier — our  honored  President — our  foremost 
citizen.  Aye,  soldier,  statesman,  loyal  citizen  he  was 
and  yet  more,  for  in  purity  of  life,  in  love  of  home  and 
wife  and  children,  in  integrity  unchallenged,  in  truth  and 
honor  unblemished,  in  manner  simplicity  itself — though 
ever  coupled  with  that  quiet  dignity  that  made  him  peer 
among  the  princes  of  the  earth — in  speech  so  clean  that 
oath  or  execration  never  soiled  his  lips,  unswerving 
in  his  faith,  a  martyr  to  his  friendships,  merciful  to  the 
fallen,  magnanimous  to  the  foe,  magnificent  in  self- 
discipline,  was  he  not  also,  and  in  all  that  the  grand 
old  name  implies,  Grant — the  gentleman? 

THE  END 


INDEX 


Academy,  U.  S.  Military   (see 

West  Point) 
Alexis,  Duke,  375 
Ammen,  Admiral,  27 
Ancestry,   13-16 
Arthur,    Chester   A.,    381,   382, 

386 
Arthur  of   Connaught,   Prince, 

Aspinwall,  124 

Augur,  C.  C,  129,  284 

Ayotla,    Grant    meets    General 

Lee  at,  102 
Ayres,  General,  317 
"Aztecs,"  the,  116,  119 
Babcock,   Orville  E.,  321,  354, 

366,  367 
Badeau,   Adam,    189,   270,   321, 

347,   348,   355,   366,   374,   376, 


Baker,  E.  D.,  157 
Baptismal  name,  12,  13 
Bartlett,  Prof.  W.  H.  C,  50,  51, 

35? 

Belgium,  royal  welcome  in,  377 
Belknap,  William  W.,  359,  360 
Belmont,  battle,  159 
Benny  Havens,  44 
Berard,  Prof.  Qaudius,  51,  60 
Big  Black  River,  229,  236 
Birth,  19 
Birthplace,  12 

Bliss,  W.  W.  S.,  54,  55,  99,  127 
Bonneville,    Colonel,    121,    130, 

241 

Bone,  Adolph  E..  352-354,  368 
Boutwell,  George  S.,  353 
Bowers,    Lieut.-CoI.,    257,    278, 

302,  304,  331 
Boyhood.  Grant's,  22-28 
Bragg,   General,  248,  264,   265, 

267 

Brevets,  Grant's  own,  107,  119 
Brevets  of  Mexican  War,  106, 

107 


Brigadiers,  the  first,  155,  156 
Brown,  Ossawatomie,  17 
Bruinsburg,  227,  236 
Buchanan,  James,  354 
Buchanan,    Lieut.-Col.    R.    C., 

126-130,  241,  242 
Buckner,  S.  B.,  67,  130,  169,  170- 

174  387 
Buell,  D.  C.,  67,  75,  155,  176,  177, 

192,   193,   197,  202,  204,  221, 

242,  259 

Buena  Vista,  100 
Burnside,  General,  286,  304,  314, 

315 
Butler,  Benjamin  F.,  280,  282, 

288,  305,  306,  314 
Calumnies  after  Shiloh,  205 
Carrollton,  250,   251 
Casey,  Mr.,  369,  370 
Casualties    of    Mexican    War, 

92-94 

Cedar  Creek,  282 
Chalco,  Lake,  102,  320 
Champion's  Hill,  228,  236,  237 
Chancellorsville,  battle,  240 
Chapultepec,   109 
Chase,  Salmon  P.,  253,  353,  381 
Chattanooga,  257,  258 
Chetlain,  Aug.,  137,  140,  148 
Chickamauga,  battle,  248,  255, 

261 

Cholera  in  camp,  124 
Church,  Col.  A.  C,  21,  207 
Church,  Prof.  A.  E.,  45,  47,  358 
Church's  estimate  of  Grant,  21, 

7i 

Churubusco,  105,  108 
City  Point,  282 
Clan  Grant,  14,  58 
Classmates,  40,  41 
Cleburne,  Pat,  268,  291 
Clemens,     Samuel    L.     (Mark 

Twain),  385 
Cleveland,  Grover,  386 


393 


INDEX 


Cold  Harbor,  278,  288,  311 
Collins,  E.  A.,  149 
Columbia  Barracks,  126,  127 
Comstock,  General,  284,  355 
Conkling,  Roscpe,  380 
Connaught,  Prince  Arthur  of, 

375 

Coppee's  reminiscences,  64,  65 
Corbyn,  Mr.,  348 
Corinth,  190 
Cox,  Jacob  D.,  352 
Cozzens,  Theodore,  360 
Cresswell,   Postmaster-General, 

352 
Crittenden,    General,   201,    202, 

222,  255,  261 
Crook,  George,  129,  282 
Cullum,  George  W.,  49,  50,  186, 

187,  336 
Cumberland,  Army  of  the,  249, 

255,  260-266 
Custer,  George  A.,  281,  321,  322, 

334 

Czar  of  Russia,  375 
Dana,  Charles  A.,  226,  227,  243, 

251,  255,  257,  267,  284 
Davies,  General,  281 
Davies,      Prof.,      estimate     of 

Grant,  71 

Davis,  Jefferson,  117,  318,  387 
Dent,  Frederick  F.,  77-79,  344 
Dent,  Frederick  T.,  69,  76,  77, 

79,  309,  321,  355,  366 
Dent,  Julia,  76-79,  119 
Deshorn,  George,  40,  123 
Donelson,  Fort,  170-173,  210 
Douglas,  Dr.  J.  H.,  385 
Douglas,  Stephen  A.,  223 
Dragoons   and  mounted   rifles, 

71 

Dream,  Grant's,  56 
Dudley,  Earl  of,  377 
Duncan,  James,  101,  113,  114 
Early,  General,  282 
Estimate  of  Grant,  Davies',  71 

Hardee's,   71 

Mahan's,  53 

Ewell,  Richard  S.,  82,  240 
Family  influences,  166,  167,  368 


Farrar,  Canon,  389 

Father  (Jesse  Root  Grant), 
16-18,  148,  149,  153,  167,  168 

Fifteenth  Army  Corps,  225 

Fifth  Cavalry,  356 

Fillmore,  Millard,  335 

Final  standing,  7 

Fish,  Hamilton,  354,  363,  368, 
373 

Five  Forks,  316 

Foote,  Admiral,   169,   170 

Forrest,  N.  B.,  291-293,  296 

Fort  Donelson,  170-173,  210 

Fort  Fisher,  314 

Fort  Henry,  169,  170 

''Fort  Henry  is  ours,"  170 

Fort  Sumter 

Franklin,  battle  at,  291,  292 

Franklin,  William  B.,  40 

Fredericksburg,  239 

Fremont,  John  C,  147,  149,  158, 
161,  180 

Fry's  reminiscences,  64 

Galena,  135-137,  235,  248,  380 

Garfield,  James  A.,  381,  382 

Genealogy,  14 

Georgetown,  Ohio,  12 

Gettysburg,  battle,  240 

Gordon's  victory  over  Sedg- 
wick,  279 

Granger,  Gordon,  267 

Grant  "man  of  mystery,"  13; 
ancestry,  18 ;  birth,  19 ;  broth 
ers  and  sisters,  20;  boy 
hood,  22;  schools,  25,  26; 
characteristics,  28 ;  illness, 
29;  farm  life,  22-30;  ap 
pointment  as  cadet,  31 ;  aver 
sion  to  soldier's  life,  33 ; 
prophecy,  35 ;  plebehood ; 
home  letters,  38,  39;  cadet 
days ;  classmates,  standing  of, 
40,  41,  61 ;  horsemanship,  27- 
29,  63-65  ;  smoking,  43 ;  short 
comings,  46;  professors,  49- 
55;  sergeancy,  61,  62;  com 
rades,  66-68,  92-94;  gradua 
tion  and  assignment,  69-71 ; 
subaltern  life,  72-79;  meet- 


394 


INDEX 


ing  with  Dent  family,  76; 
courtship,  77-79 ;  engage 
ment,  83,  84;  aversion  to  the 
Mexican  war,  85;  to  dwell 
ing,  86 ;  subordination,  85,  86 ; 
commands  company  at 
Resaca,  92;  bravery  in  battle, 
92,  97,  98;  made  quarter 
master,  95,  96;  heroism  at 
Monterey,  96,  97;  meeting 
with  Lee,  102,  103;  declines 
brevet,  107,  108;  gallantry  at 
Molino,  108,  109 ;  brilliant  ex 
ploit  at  San  Cosme,  110-112; 
Grant  thanked  by  three  com 
manders,  112;  brevet  captain, 
112;  robbed  of  $1000,  119; 
leave  of  absence  and  mar 
riage,  120;  stationed  at 
Sackett  Harbor,  121 ;  longing 
to  resign,  122,  129;  efforts  to 
find  civil  employment,  122; 
off  for  California,  124; 
cholera  in  camp,  124,  125 ; 
separation  from  wife  and 
children,  126;  loneliness  and 
depression;  begins  to  drink, 
126;  promotion,  127;  move  to 
Humboldt ;  adverse  influ 
ences,  127;  resignation,  128, 
129;  hard  luck  in  San  Fran 
cisco,  130;  homeward  bound, 
130;  borrows  of  Buckner, 
131 ;  return  to  family,  133 ; 
farmer,  133;  life  at  Hard- 
scrabble,  134;  moves  to 
White  Haven,  134;  more 
hard  luck,  134;  fever  and 
ague,  134;  moves  to  town, 
134;  real  estate  and  col 
lections,  134;  failures,  134, 
135;  moves  to  Galena,  135; 
clerk  to  younger  brothers, 
135,  136;  debts  and  despond 
ency,  135,  136;  politics,  137; 
impending  war;  drills  a 
militia  company,  137,  138; 
declines  captaincy,  140;  goes 
to  Springfield,  140,  145 ;  clerk 


at  $3  a  day,  142 ;  slave  owner, 
142;  meets  Sherman,  143; 
seeks  McClellan,  144;  tender 
of  service  ignored,  144 ;  ten 
dered  colonelcy ;  assumes 
command,  145;  first  speech, 
145;  discipline,  146,  147;  on 
the  march,  147,  148;  father 
refuses  aid,  148;  commands 
brigade,  151 ;  appointed  brig 
adier-general,  U.  S.  V.,  152, 
156;  heads  list  for  Illinois, 
152-154;  Belmont  and  Mc- 
Clernand,  159;  narrow  es 
cape,  159;  snubs  from  Fre 
mont,  158,  161 ;  suspicions  of 
Halleck,  158,  160,  161,  168; 
rebukes  his  father,  167,  168; 
moves  on  Fort  Henry,  169, 
170;  success,  170;  capture  of 
Donelson,  172;  first  major- 
general  U.  S.  V.,  178;  popu 
larity,  179;  gifts,  179;  cigars, 
180;  Halleck's  mis  judgment, 
183 ;  suspension  from  com 
mand,  183;  resumes  com 
mand,  187;  truthfulness,  188; 
Buell's  discourtesy,  194,  204; 
Shiloh,  195-203;  more  evil 
days  ;  again  humiliated,  203 ; 
again  chief  in  command,  212 ; 
compelled  to  remove  gener 
als,  214;  the  winter  cam 
paign,  214;  McClernand's 
machinations,  214,  223,  226; 
warned  by  Wilson,  217; 
moves  on  Vicksburg,  224,  225 ; 
McClernand's  disobedience, 
227-220^  237 ;  bombardment, 
234;  ride  to  the  far  front, 
235;  crosses  the  Mississippi; 
cuts  loose  from  base,  236; 
brilliant  campaign  to  Jackson, 
236 ;  Sherman's  remon 
strance,  237;  invests  Vicks 
burg;  forces  its  surrender, 
238;  relaxation,  248;  visits 
New  Orleans;  accident;  on 
crutches,  250 ;  Rawlins's 


395 


INDEX 


letter  of  warning,  251 ;  cal 
umnies,  251,  252;  on  to  Chat 
tanooga,  255,  258;  meets 
Stanton,  255;  Grant  com 
mands  entire  West,  255,  256; 
relieves  Rosecrans,  256 ; 
Hooker's  effrontery,  259 ; 
strained  relations  with 
Thomas,  260,  266 ;  wins  out  at 
Chattanooga,  263-265;  efforts 
in  behalf  of  Buell,  McClellan 
et  al.,  271 ;  made  lieutenant- 
general,  275;  at  Willard's 
Hotel,  Washington,  275;  the 
President's  welcome,  276; 
dodges  Washington  en 
tanglements;  goes  to  the 
front,  277 ;  forward  from  the 
Rapidan,  278;  electric  mes 
sage  to  Washington,  278; 
emotion  over  repulse,  279; 
determined  advance,  279;  in 
vesting  Petersburg,  282;  ap 
pearance  in  field,  287;  non 
chalance  under  fire,  288 ; 
crosses  the  James,  288;  Cold 
Harbor;  regrets,  288,  311; 
habits,  289;  news  of  Nash 
ville,  290 ;  impatience  with 
Thomas,  293;  unjust  orders, 
294 ;  starts  for  Nashville,  298 ; 
stopped  at  Washington,  299 ; 
family  at  the  front,  309 ;  final 
campaign,  313-322;  the  pur 
suit  of  Lee,  319;  mercy  of 
fered  at  Petersburg,  320;  the 
dawn  of  Appomattox,  320; 
relentless  pursuit,  320 ; 
Grant's  illness,  320;  meeting 
with  Lee,  321 ;  the  dramatic 
surrender,  321 ;  magnanimity 
and  unselfishness,  321 ;  re 
turn  to  Washington,  322; 
enthusiasm  of  the  nation, 
326;  troubles  with  Johnson 
and  Stanton,  327;  Secretary 
of  War  ad  interim,  338; 
breaks  with  the  President  and 
three  of  the  Cabinet,  339;. 


nominated  for  presidency, 
345;  revisits  Galena,  347; 
elected  President,  347;  reti 
cence,  347;  new  methods, 
348;  inaugural  address;  Mrs. 
Grant's  anxiety,  350;  first 
Cabinet ;  errors,  352 ;  Cabinet 
changes,  3?3"J"~private  secre 
taries,  354,  355,  366;  life  at 
White  House,  354;  at  West 
Point,  358,  360;  relations 
with  Secretary  Fish,  354, 
363;  with  Belknap,  359,  360; 
antagonism  of  Sumner,  354, 
357,  367;  presents  of  home 
steads  and  other  gifts,  367; 
family  entanglements,  368 ; 
relations  in  office,  369; 
troublous  _jf ears,  369,  370 ; 
second  term ;  close  of  admin 
istration,  370,  371 ;  Nellie's 
engagement  and  marriage ; 
Grant's  forebodings,  372, 
373;  journeys  abroad,  373, 
374;  public  demonstrations  at 
home,  and  reception  in  Eng 
land  by  people,  by  Prince  of 
Wales,  by  Queen,  373-376; 
royal  honors  in  Belgium  and 
France,  377;  visits  the  East, 
378;  China  and  Japan,  378; 
homeward  bound,  demon 
stration  at  San  Francisco  and 
honors  en  route,  378;  again 
a  candidate;  suffers  first  de 
feat,  379;  Chicago  Conven 
tion,  1880,  379;  aids  Garfield, 
380;  breaks  with  Washburne, 
380;  settlement  in  civil  life, 
380;  travels  further,  380; 
enters  Wall  Street;  Grant 
&  Ward,  381 ;  affluence,  381 ; 
anxieties,  382;  calamity,  be 
trayal,  financial  ruin,  384; 
rallying  friends,  385;  expert 
examination  of  throat,  385 ; 
failing  health,  385 ;  final  cam 
paign  and  struggle,  386 ;  writ 
ing  his  Memoirs,  386;  re- 


INDEX 


stored  to  rank  in  army, 
removed  to  Mount  Mc 
Gregor,  387;  last  days; 
death,  388;  funeral  cere 
monies,  388;  summary  of 
character,  389-391 ;  tributes 
to  Grant—the  gentleman, 
390,  391 

Grant  &  Ward,  381-384 
Grant  clan  and  motto,  14 
Grant,  Frederick  Dent,  243,  290, 
309,  335,  358,  359,  369,  375, 
380 

Grant,  Hannah  S.,  18,  19,  23 
Grant,  Jesse  Root,  13-16,  19,  30- 
33,  H9,  148,  167,  205,  252,  253, 
309 
Grant,    Jesse    (the    younger), 

308,  324,  348,  375,  376 
Grant,  Julia  Dent,  76-78,  82,  83, 
H9,  133,  138,  167,  205,  235, 
245,  247,  257,  275,  300,  308-310, 
323,  324,  340,  344,  348-351,  356, 
358,  359,  368,  37i-38o,  382, 


Grant,  Nellie,  372-374,  383,  386 

Grant  orders  Thomas  relieved, 
296,  297 

Grant's  emotion  in  the  wilder 
ness,  279 

Grant,  Ulysses,  Jr.,  377,  381,  382, 

384. 

Gravois  road,  82 
Gregg,  David  McM.,  281 
Halleck,  H.  W.,  130,  150,  160, 

161,    169,    175,    177,    179-186, 

192,    197,    198,   203-213,    224, 

241,  248,  249,  250,  260,  275, 

280,  281,  294-298 
Halleck's  telegram,  177 
Hall's  Ferry,  229 
Hamer,  Thomas  L.,  31,  32,  99 
Hamilton,  C.  S.,  133,  156,  176, 

213 
Hancock,  Winfield  S.,  67,  231, 

284,  285,  314,  341,  342,  387, 


Hardee,  tactician,  217 
Hardee's  estimate  of  Grant,  71 


Hardscrabble,  133,  134,  235,  248 
Havens,  Benny  44 
Hay,  John,  365 
Hayes,  Alex.,  67 
Hayes,  Rutherford  B.,  371 
Henry,  Fort,  169,  170 
Herron,  General,  287 
Historical      Society      Library, 

Chicago,  301 
Hitchcock,  Ethan  A.,  74,  75,  98, 

99,  132,  154 
Hoar,    Attorney-General,     352, 

Hodges,  Henry  C.,  129,  188 
Holly  Springs,  220,  221 
Hood,  General,  289,  291-299 
Hooker,  Joseph,   156,   192,  239, 

240,  241,  258,  259,  284,  286 
Hornets'   Nest,    199 
Hoskins,  Chas.,  92,  95,  97 
Humboldt,  Fort,   125,   127,   128 
Humphreys,  General,  314 
Hurlbut,   S.  A.,   156,    191,  200, 

213,  214 

"I  cannot  spare  this  man,     200 
Ingalls,    Rufus,    163,    188,    284, 

347,  355 

Island  No.  10,  207 

Jackson,  Andrew,  132 

Jackson,  Thomas  J.  (Stone 
wall),  68,  123,  212,  240,  277 

Jefferson  Barracks,  69,  74,  81, 
82,  120 

Johnson,  Andrew,  327-329,  334 
et  seq. 

Johnston,  A.  S.,  181,  182,  185, 
189,  191-194,  197.  199 

Johnston,  Joseph   E.,  236,  267, 

Kautz,  A.  V.,  129 

Kellogg,  aide,  263 

Kendrick,  Henry  S.,  51 

Kilpatrick,  General,  281 

Kittoe.  Dr.,  255 

Lee,  Francis,  121,  125 

Lee,   Robert   E.,    18,   202,   240, 

277-279,  318-322 
at     Appomattox,     318, 
321 


397 


INDEX 


Lee,  Robert  E.,  meeting  with 
Grant     in     Mexico, 
102,  214,  320 
surrender  of,  212,  320- 

322 
Lieutenant-general,     office     of, 

271,  275,  276 
Grant's  acceptance  of, 

276 
Lincoln,  13,  178,  179,  206,  222, 

223,  231,  240,  275,  276,   278, 

289,   298,  318,  327,  328,  333, 

353,  354,  365,  366,  389 
Lincoln's    wish    as   to    Grant's 

whiskey,  231 

Logan,  John  A.,  145,  192,  298 
Longstreet,  James,  67,  84,  119, 

240,  248,  277 

McCall,  Captain,  91,  92,  156 
McClellan,  63,  68,  127,  144,  149, 

169,   180,   183,   184,    187,  208, 

2ii,  220,  242,  271,  3" 
McClernand,  E-  J.,  272 
McClernand,  J.  A.,  157,  159,  169- 

171,  191,  192,  199,  200,  213,  214, 

222-232,    236,    237,    243,    251, 

271,  272 
McClernand's  defiance,  229 

relief,  232 
McCook,  General,  201,  222,  255, 

261 

McDowell,  General,  212 
Macfeely,  General,  284 
McGregor,  Mount,  387,  390 
McPherson,  J.  B.,  103,  198,  203, 

215-217,  230,  237,  248,  284,  287 
Magruder,  "  Prince  John,"  248 
Mahan,  Prof.  D.  H.,  50,  53,  358 
Mahan's  estimate  of  Grant,  53 
"Mark  Twain,"  385 
Marriage,  119-121 
Mason,  "Jule,"  356 
Meade,  General,  240,  248,  281, 

282,  284-286,  304,  305,  313-320, 

330 

Mechanics'  Institute,  New  Or 
leans,  342 

Mendenhall,  General,  202 

Merritt,  General,  281 


Mexican  War,   Grant's  record 

in,   115 

heavy  casualties  of,  94 
heavy  losses  of   West 

Point,  116 
Military   Academy    (see    West 

Point) 

Mine  Run,  285 
Missionary  Ridge,  264-268 
Mississippi,  Army  of  the,  224, 

226,  248 

Molino  del  Rey,  108,  109 
Monterey,  Grant  at,  97,  98 
Mother    (Hannah   S.),   18,    19, 

22-24,  30 

Mother,  letters  to,  23,  38,  39 
Motto  of  Clan  Grant,  58 
Mount  McGregor,  387,  390 
Murfreesboro,    222,    239,    261, 

296 

Nashville,  290,  292,  298 
Natchez,  248 
Nelson,   200 
New  Carthage,  235 
Newman,  Dr.,  342 
New    Orleans,   visit   and   acci 
dent  at,  250 
Nicolay,  John  G.,  365 
Northern    Virginia,    Army    of, 

319-321 

Ogelsby,  Richard,  153 
O'Hara,  Theo.,  117,  118 
Ohio,   Army  of  the,  213,  221, 

239,  261 

"Old  Brains,"  207,  208 
Orchard  Knob,  264 
Ord,  E.   O.  C,  282,  314,  320, 

321 

Palo  Alto,  91,  107 
Panama  Isthmus,  crossing,  124 
Parker,  Colonel,  aide,  321 
Parker,  John  G.,  314 
Pemberton,   General,   in,  236- 

238,  244 
Perryville,  221 
Petersburg,   282 
Pickett,  Geo.  E.,  68 
Pierce,   Franklin,    114 


398 


INDEX 


Pillow,  G.  J.,  104,  107,  113,  168, 
170,  171,  175 

Pitcher,  Thomas  G.,  68,  145, 
146,  336 

Pittsburg  Landing,  191,  200 

Pitzman,   Major,  203 

Point  Pleasant,  Ohio,  12 

Pleasonton,  General,  281 

Pope,  General,  207,  210-212 

Porter,  David  D.,  234 

Porter,  Horace,  163,  188,  269, 
270,  284,  286,  288,  289,  300, 
302,  306,  321,  347,  354,  366, 
382 

Port  Gibson,  227,  236 

Potomac,  Army  of,  211,  212, 
239,  258,  284,  287,  300,  330 

Prentiss,  B.  M.,  153-156,  160, 
196,  199,  201 

Quartermaster,  Grant  as,  95- 
97,  no,  120 

Quinby,  Professor,  123 

Rawlins,  John  A.,  137,  162-164, 
179,  209,  213,  215-219,  224, 
227-229,  244-247,  250,  251, 
257,  259,  262,  269,  272,  275, 
277-279,  286,  302,  303,  306, 
309,  321,  342,  343,  347,  349. 
352,  355,  367 

Rawlins,  Wilson's  picture  of, 
219 

Rawlins's  appeal,  251 
outbreak,  253,  254 

Rebuke  to  his  father,  167,  168, 

253 

Resaca,  91 

Reynolds,  J.  J.,  134,  156,  176 

Richmond,  Va.,  282 

Robbery  of  $1000,  120 

"Rock  of  Chickamauga,"  269 

Rosecrans,  J.,  67,  150,  213,  221, 
222,  239,  248,  249,  255-261, 
349,  350 

Rosecrans  relieved  from  com 
mand,  256 

Rowley,  209,  302,  304 

Sackett  Harbor,  121,  126 

Samana  Bay,  363 

San  Cosme  gate,  108,  110-112 


San  Domingo,  357,  363 

Sanitary  Commission,  311 

Sartoris,  Algernon,  372,  373 

Schaff,  Morris,  44 

Schofield,  John  M.,  296,  297, 
352 

Schurz,  Carl,  332 

Scott,  Winfield,  45,  55,  56,  74, 

89,    113,    114,   337 
tribute  to  West  Point, 
114 

Sedgwick,  General,  279,  281, 
284,  285,  314 

Seventeenth  Army  Corps,  225 

Seward,  William  H.,  339,  353, 
362 

Sheridan,  18,  129,  264,  267, 
268,  280-283,  284,  285,  311, 
312,  315-321,  330,  331,  342, 
380 

Sherman,  18,  37,  66,  82,  155, 
161,  181,  183,  189,  191,  192, 
194-202,  204-210,  213,  216, 
230,  233,  237,  242,  243,  248- 
251,  257,  260,  264,  265,  268, 
272-274,  282,  284,  285,  292, 
301,  311,  324-326,  328.-33I, 
335,  337,  338,  347,  365,  366, 
375 

Sherman's  analysis  of  Grant, 
273,  274 

Shiloh,   189,   190,   194-196,    198, 

202,  203 
calumnies  after,  205 

Simpson,  Hannah,  18,  23 

Sixteenth  Army  Corps,  325 

Sixth  Army  Corps,  316 

Slave  owner,  Grant  as  a,   142 

Smith,  C.  R,  51,  52,  61-63,  161, 
169-172,  176,  181-183,  189,  191, 
200,  242,  251 

Smith,  C.  F.,  Grant's  tribute  to, 
188 

Smith,  W.  F.  (Baldy),  68,  281, 
288,  289 

Southwestern  Department,  225 

Spear,  Hon.  Mr.,  370 

Spottsylvania,  278 


399 


INDEX 


Springfield,  Grant  at,  142 

Stanton,  E.  M.,  179,  221,  222, 
239,  250,  255,  256,  257,  273, 
275,  285,  294-296,  298,  307, 
327,  329-331,  338,  339,  349 

Stevenson,  257-259 

Stewart,  A.  T.,  349,  352-354 

Stone,  Charles  P.,  183 

Stoneman,  General,  281 

Stuart,  General,  280,  281 

Sumner,  Charles,  346,  353,  354, 
357,  362-364,  367-369,  381 

Swinton,  Mr.,  303-305 

Tacubaya,  109,  120 

Taylor,  Dick,  342 

Taylor,  Zachary,  54,  81,  89,  99, 
ioo,  343 

Tender     of     service,     Grant's, 

143,  M4 

Tennessee,  Army  of  the,  225, 
230-232,  249,  258 

Terrell,  General,  202 

Thayer,  Sylvanus,  49 

Theft  of  $1000,  119 

Thirteenth  Army  Corps,  225, 
230-232,  248 

Thomas,  George  H.,  66,  82,  170, 
179,  192,  193,  207,  221,  222, 
249,  255,  257,  260-266,  268, 
269,  289-299,  315,  324-326, 

331 

Thomas,  Grant  orders  him  re 
lieved,  206,  297 

T.  I.  O.,  the,  68,  116 

Tod,  Judge,  16 

Torbert,  General,  282 

Trist,  Nicholas  P.,  105-117 

"Unconditional  surrender,"  174 

Union  league,  311 

Upton,  Emory,  288,  307 

Vanderbilt,  William  H.,  383 

Van  Vliet,  Stewart,  355 

Vera  Cruz,  ioo 


Vicksburg,  224,  230,  233  ct  seq., 

238,  248 

Victoria,  Queen,  374-376 
Wade,  Benjamin  F.,  362 
Wallace,  Lew,  197,  200,  201 
Wallace,  W.  H.,  199 
Warren,    Gouverneur    K.,   281, 

284-287,  314-317 
Washburne,     Elihu     B.,     137, 

147,   1 60,  206,  252,  271,  303, 

347,  349,  352,  380 
Wedding,  Grant's,  120,   121 
Welles,  Gideon,  339 
West  Point,  35,  36,  40-48,  57- 

61,  73,  88,  114,  117 
heavy    losses    of,    92, 

116 

Scott's  tribute  to,   114 
White  Haven,  06,  119,  120,  310 
Wilcox,    Cadmus,    groomsman, 

1 20 
Wilderness,  Grant's  emotion  in, 

279 

Willard,  aide,  262 
Williams,  Robert,  360 
Williamsport,  240 
Wilson  brothers,  216,  217 
Wilson,     James     H.,     216-219, 

224,  227  et  seq.,  235,  244,  251, 

253,  257,   258,   262,   269,   273, 

274,    281,    282,    284-286,    200- 

293,  295-209,  307,  3n 
Wilson,  Mr.  (of  Iowa),  353 
Winchester,  282 
Winthrop,  Fred,  317 
Wood,  General,  264 
Worth,  W.  F.,  45,  89,  ioo,  m- 

114 

Wright,  General,  314,  3*6 
Yates,   Richard,   141,   142,   160, 

224,  227,  271 
Yellow  Tavern,  Va.,  280 
Young,  John  Russell,  380 


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